How to Use Markdown in Google Docs

Markdown is a very basic method to give text some stylistic elements. Compared to the much more complex and bulky HTML, Markdown uses text to format text. Nothing really fancy, but the sheer simplicity has led towards it gaining a lot of favor among people. Now even Google Docs supports Markdown because everyone wants to write faster and efficiently.

How to Enable and Use Markdown in Google Docs

Google Docs does not support Markdown, a simple formatting syntax, natively. However, here is how to turn it on:

Go to Preferences in the Tools menu.

Check the box to Enable Markdown.

With this option enabled Google Docs automatically recognizes Markdown symbols as you type and formats text. It also lets you paste Markdown right-click, then Paste from Markdown. Share your text as Markdown by copying it right-click: Copy as Markdown.

Whereas you can format text using Markdown in Google Docs, remember such that after something is formatted into Markdown the original formatting isn't there anymore. This means you won't get a Markdown viewer and can't work directly in this view with Google Docs. Other tools might be more fitting for those who rather opt for a different Markdown editor.

You can use Markdown formatting for quite a number of these to help in formatting a document on Google Docs. Here's a quick overview:

You can make words bold, italic, or both by surrounding one asterisk for italics, two for bold, or three for both.

Headings: In general, headings are produced by adding one or more leading hash characters (#) in front of the text, followed by a space, for the heading to be displayed in the appropriate format.

Lists: An asterisk (*) or dash (-) for creating an unordered list, and numbers followed by periods for ordered lists.

Links: delimit the text of the link with square brackets. Place the actual web address in parentheses.

Get and Share Google Docs Markdown File(s)

Now, with the markdown imports and exports, there is a new direct change in working with Google doc, which is supporting more flexibility for writers and developers. Export to Markdown To export a Google doc to a Markdown file:

Open the document you want to export.

On the top menu bar, click File, then hover over Download.

In the right submenu that appears, select Markdown (.md).

Working with Markdown: You can open a Google doc through File and Open or directly through the URL via Import Markdown.

Find and click on the Markdown file you wish to open Import Alternatively, you can upload the Markdown file to Google Drive and right-click on it, selecting Open with > Google Docs.

It allows users to shift smoothly between both platforms, expanding the scope to make it possible to create content and help in the collaborative process. By controlling these basic Markdown tools, you should now be able to easily format text in your Google document.