Markdown, once you get used to it, becomes muscle memory. I don't think to insert a link by highlighting text and clicking a toolbar button—I

How to Use Markdown in Google Docs

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2022-06-23 16:30:14

Markdown, once you get used to it, becomes muscle memory. I don't think to insert a link by highlighting text and clicking a toolbar button—I insert a link by putting square brackets around the text and parentheses around the URL. It's just faster.

It's annoying, then, when I'd reflexively try to do the same thing in some other app only for nothing to happen. Google Docs fixed this problem recently by adding official support for Markdown. Well … sort of.

Google Docs can convert markdown to its native formatting in real time, but only a small subset of what's called Markdown is supported. Still, it's the fastest way to bold and italicize text, and add links, in Google Docs. If you don't know what Markdown is, you're not going to be interested in this feature, but if you (like me) find yourself using it reflexively, you will want to enable it. Here's how it works.

Check that option and some markdown will now automatically convert as you type. For example you can quickly add links by surrounding the text in square brackets and the URL in parentheses. Like this: