Use Markdown in Google Docs, Slides & Drawings

You can use Markdown to quickly add formatting elements to your Google Docs, Slides and Drawings. With Markdown, you can format text to add:

  • Italics 
  • Bold
  • Strikethrough
  • Links

On Google Docs, you can also use Markdown to create different headings.

Turn Markdown on or off

  1. On your computer, open a file in Google Docs, Google Slides or Google Drawings.
  2. Go to Tools and then Preferences.
  3. Tick/untick the box next to ‘Automatically detect Markdown’.

Italicise, bold and strikethrough text with Markdown

  • To format text as italic, enclose it in a single asterisk or underscore.
  • To format text as bold, enclose it in two asterisks or underscores.
  • To format text as italics and bold, enclose it in three asterisks or underscores.
  • To format text in strikethrough, enclose it in a single tilde.

Text in Markdown

How it appears

This text is _italic_. 

This text is *italic*.

This text is italic.

This text is __bold__. 

This text is **bold**.

This text is bold.

This text is ___italic and bold___. 

This text is ***italic and bold***.

This text is italic and bold.

This text is in ~strikethrough~.

This text is in strikethrough.

Add links with Markdown

To create a link with Markdown: 

  1. Write the linked text in brackets (e.g. [Google Docs]).
  2. After the bracketed text, write the URL in parentheses (e.g. (https://docs.google.com/document/)).
    • Important: Don’t include a space between the text in brackets and the URL in parentheses.

Text in Markdown

How it appears

Open a file in [Google Docs](https://docs.google.com/document/).

Open a file in Google Docs.

Create headings with Markdown in Google Docs

If you’re on Google Docs, you can also use Markdown to create up to 6 different headings.

To create a heading,

  1. Start at the beginning of a paragraph.
  2. Add number signs (#) in front of your heading text. The number of number signs that you use corresponds to the heading level.
    • For example, to create a heading 2, use two number signs (e.g., ## My Header).
  3. Write your heading text.
    • Important: Make sure you include a space between the number sign(s) and the heading text.

Text in Markdown

How it appears

# Heading 1

Heading 1

## Heading 2

Heading 2

### Heading 3

Heading 3

#### Heading 4

Heading 4

##### Heading 5

Heading 5

###### Heading 6

Heading 6

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