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If you\u2019d rather format your Google Docs document using text shortcuts than keyboard ones, you can \u2014 Google Docs offers Markdown support. Back in March 2022, in a blog post announcing the feature<\/a>, Google explained it was doing this through its autocorrect feature so that Docs will automatically format the text for you after you type it in Markdown format. For example, if you type \u201c# Google Docs is getting more Markdown support,\u201d it\u2019ll automatically get converted to a level one heading. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The feature is off by default \u2014 probably a good choice, as it\u2019s easy to imagine a lot of people getting confused if typing a pound sign in front of something automatically switched it to be a header. To activate the feature:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When it first started, Docs supported a few Markdown autocorrections for bulleted and numbered lists and checkboxes. Later, it added much wider support \u2014 you can use Markdown to add headings, bold and italicize text (or do both<\/strong><\/em>), strikethrough (though it\u2019s done using a – on either side of your content, rather than the traditional ~), and links. That\u2019s far from a complete implementation of Markdown<\/a>, but at least it covers most of what many of us personally use the language for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019re used to writing in Markdown in other applications, Google Docs\u2019 implementation is probably going to take some getting used to (even ignoring the seemingly nonstandard strikethrough syntax and absent options). Rather than showing you your marks in plain text, it uses them to automatically apply formatting and then gets rid of them. That\u2019s different from how most other text editors display Markdown by default \u2014 usually, you\u2019ll still be able to see the marks, with the editor also adding some type of formatting to give you an idea of how it\u2019ll look when you publish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Whether you like this approach is probably a personal preference. Google\u2019s implementation probably won\u2019t appeal very much to the people who use Markdown to get complete control of their text (without having to bother with HTML\u2019s annoying closing tags). But for anyone who just wants the ability to use Markdown as a shortcut to formatting and doesn\u2019t care about fussing around with plaintext, Google\u2019s way could be relatively approachable \u2014 instead of selecting text and pressing Command \/ Control + L to insert a link, you can just type a few brackets and parentheses. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n (It\u2019s also probably worth noting that this implementation is much friendlier for when you share a document with a co-worker who doesn\u2019t know what Markdown is.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n