Google Docs

Formatting text, hyperlinks, and more

Watch the video (3:47).

Watch the video to learn how to format text in Google Documents, including line spacing, paragraph spacing, and hyperlinks.

Toolbar Shortcut Menu

Google Documents offers a variety of text formatting options you can use to modify the look and feel of your document. These options are located in the Toolbar Shortcut Menu. In the next few pages, you'll learn how these options can help you to enhance your document's appearance.

The Google Documents Toolbar Shortcut Button

To change the font style:

1. Select the text you wish to modify.
   Selecting text to modify
2. Click the Font Style box from the toolbar. A drop-down menu of font styles appears. The name of each font style has been formatted to look like the style it describes.
   Clicking the Font drop-down arrow
3. Select the font style you wish to use. In our example, we will select the Lobster font style.
   Selecting a font style
4. The selected text will change to the new font style.
   Viewing the changed font style

If you don't see the font style you're looking for, or if you would like more styles to choose from, Google Documents allows you to add additional fonts to the Font style drop-down menu. Locate and click Add fonts... from the bottom of the Font style drop-down menu to open the Add fonts dialog box.

Clicking Add fonts...

To change the font size:

1. Select the text you wish to modify.
   Selecting text to modify
2. Click the Font size box from the toolbar. A drop-down menu of font sizes appears.
   Clicking the Font size drop-down arrow
3. Select the font size you wish to use. In our example, we'll change the font size to 14 to make it larger.
   Selecting a font size
4. The text will change to the new font size.
   Viewing the results
   

To change the text color:

1. Select the text you wish to modify.
   Selecting text to modify
2. Click the Text color box from the toolbar. A drop-down menu of text colors appears. The box of the current text color is checked.
   Clicking the Text color drop-down arrow
3. Select the box of the text color you wish to use. In our example, we'll choose blue.
   Selecting a font color
4. The text will change to the new color.
   Viewing the changed font color

To highlight text:

Google Documents refers to highlighting as changing the text background color.

1. Select the text you wish to modify, then click the Text background color box from the toolbar.
2. A drop-down menu of text background colors appears. Select the text background color you wish to use.
   Choosing a text background color
3. The text will be highlighted.
   Highlighted text