The Automatic Bullet Annoyance
Google Docs tries to anticipate when you are creating a list to save you time. If you type an asterisk (“*”) or a hyphen (“-“) at the absolute beginning of a new line, and then press the Spacebar, Docs’ algorithm instantly deletes the character you typed and replaces it with a formal, indented bullet point. When you press Enter at the end of that line, it automatically generates another bullet point on the next line.
While this is convenient for rapid outlining, it is incredibly annoying if you are simply trying to use a hyphen for a different formatting purpose. Perhaps you are writing a script and want to use hyphens to denote rapid dialogue, or you are manually creating an ASCII-style divider, or you just want a hyphen flush against the left margin without any automatic indentation. If you find yourself constantly battling the software and pressing Ctrl + Z to undo the automatic bulleting, you should simply turn the feature off.
How to Stop Automatic Bullet Generation
You can disable the predictive list formatting within the Preferences menu.
- Open a document in Google Docs.
- Look at the top toolbar and click on Tools.
- Select Preferences from the dropdown menu.
- In the Preferences window, ensure you are on the General tab.
- Look down the list of checkboxes for the option labelled Automatically detect lists.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click the blue OK button to save your changes.
From now on, typing a hyphen or asterisk and pressing space will result in exactly what you typed: plain text. If you want a formal, indented bulleted list, you will now need to intentionally click the “Bulleted list” icon in the formatting toolbar.