Change how paragraphs and fonts look


               

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You can use the toolbar at the top of a document to:

  • Edit and format the text and paragraph spacing
  • Change the font and background colour
  • Bold, italicise, underline or strikethrough text

Format paragraphs

Change paragraph spacing and alignment

Change paragraph alignment

  1. Go to the paragraph you want to change.
    • Or select multiple paragraphs.
  2. To change the paragraph spacing and alignment:
    • In the toolbar, at the upper right, select Align.
    • Open the Format menu, then select Align & indent.
  3. Choose an alignment option:
    • Left
    • Centered
    • Right
    • Justified

Change line & paragraph spacing

  1. On your computer, open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Select the lines that you want to change.
  3. Click Format and then Line & paragraph spacing.
  4. Select a line spacing option:
    • To change your paragraph spacing, click Single, 1.15, 1.5 or Double.
    • To change your spacing between paragraphs, click Remove space before paragraph or Add space after paragraph.
    • To enter a custom size, click Custom spacing. Then, enter the size of the spacing that you want before and after a paragraph and click Apply.
    • To keep paragraph headings and text on the same page, click Keep with next
    • To keep all lines of text in the same paragraph on the same page, click Keep lines together.
    • To prevent single lines at the beginning or end of paragraphs, click Prevent single lines.

Important: Keep with next, Keep lines together and Prevent single lines aren't available in documents that are in pageless format. To use these features, make sure your document is in pages format.

Change paragraph borders or color
  1. On your computer, open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Select the paragraph that you want to change.
  3. Click Format and then Paragraph styles and then Borders and shading.
  4. In the window that opens, change how you want your paragraph to look.
  5. To remove paragraph borders or colour, click Reset.
  6. When you have finished, click Apply.

Format font

Change text case
  1. On your computer, open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Select the text you want to change.
  3. On the tool bar, select Text Color Colour text .
  4. Select the color you want.
Choose a default font
  1. Select the text you want for a default.
  2. Open the Format menu.
  3. Select Paragraph styles and then Normal text and then Update 'Normal text' to match.
Tip: To have new documents use this font, open the Format menu and then select Paragraph styles and then Options and then Save as my default styles.
Add fonts to your font list

In some languages, you can add new fonts to your font list.

  1. Press Alt + slash.
    • On Mac, press Option + slash.
  2. Enter more fonts.
  3. Press Enter.
    • A dialog box appears with a list of fonts.
  4. To add new fonts, press Space.
  5. Once done, press Tab to the OK button and press Enter.

Tip: The font dialog includes options for sorting and searching. You can search for types of fonts like “serif,” “script,” or “mono.“

Available languages

Fonts are available in these languages:

  • Afrikaans
  • Albanian
  • Arabic
  • Azerbaijani
  • Bangla
  • Burmese
  • Catalan
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Estonian
  • Filipino
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Gujarati
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Icelandic
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Kannada
  • Kazakh
  • Khmer
  • Kyrgyz
  • Latvian
  • Lithuanian
  • Macedonian
  • Malay
  • Malayalam
  • Marathi
  • Mongolian
  • Nepali
  • Norwegian
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese 
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Sinhala
  • Slovak
  • Slovenian
  • Spanish
  • Swahili
  • Swedish
  • Tamil
  • Telugu
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Uzbek
  • Vietnamese
Change the font color
  1. On your computer, open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Select the text you want to change.
  3. On the tool bar, select Text Color Colour text .
  4. Select the color you want.
Change the background or highlight color
  1. On your computer, open a document in Google docs.
  2. Select the text you want to change.
  3. On the toolbar, select Highlight Color Highlight text.
  4. Select the color you want.
Bold, italicize, or strikethrough text
  1. Select the text you want to change.
  2. Open the Format menu.
  3. Select Text.
  4. Choose your text format:
    • Bold
    • Italic
    • Underline
    • Strikethrough
Tip: You can select text formats like bold, italic, and underline from the "Toolbar menu" or use keyboard shortcuts for your preferred format.
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