The Automatic Hyperlink Feature
Google Docs is designed to be a connected, web-first word processor. As a result, it aggressively attempts to turn plain text into interactive elements. One of the most obvious examples is its link recognition. By default, the moment you type a web address (like www.example.com) or an email address, and press the spacebar or the Enter key, Google Docs instantly converts that text into a blue, underlined, clickable hyperlink.
While this is incredibly convenient when writing a memo or a newsletter where you want readers to click through to references, it is highly disruptive in many professional contexts. If you are drafting a legal document where URLs must remain in plain black text for print purposes, writing a programming tutorial where URLs are meant to be copied as raw strings, or creating a document where the blue underlines ruin the visual formatting, this automatic conversion is a constant nuisance. If you want a URL to simply remain as text on a page, you must turn off the automatic link detection.
How to Stop Automatic Link Formatting
You can prevent URLs from turning into hyperlinks via 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, make sure you are on the General tab.
- Look through the list of checkboxes for the option labelled Automatically detect links.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click the blue OK button to save your changes.
From now on, when you type a web address or an email address, it will remain exactly as you typed it—plain, unformatted text. If you ever need to create a link manually, you can simply highlight the text and press Ctrl + K (or Cmd + K on Mac).