The Intrusive Sidebar
Google Docs attempts to assist with long-form writing by automatically generating a “Document Outline.” As you format text using Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3 styles, the software automatically builds a clickable table of contents that persists in a sidebar on the extreme left edge of your screen. While useful for navigating a fifty-page thesis, this sidebar can be incredibly annoying when you are simply drafting a two-page memo. It consumes valuable horizontal screen real estate, squishing your actual document towards the right side of your monitor and creating unnecessary visual clutter.
Hiding the Automated Structure
To reclaim your screen space and completely disable the automatic display of the Document Outline sidebar, you must adjust the core view settings of the application.
Open any Google Doc where the outline sidebar is currently visible. Navigate to the very top menu bar and click on the View menu. About halfway down the dropdown list, you will see an option labelled Show outline. By default, this option has a checkmark next to it. Click on Show outline to remove the checkmark. The left-hand sidebar will instantly vanish, allowing your document to center itself perfectly within the browser window. Furthermore, Google Docs will remember this view preference. Even if you continue to aggressively use Heading tags to format your text, the outline will remain hidden in the background until you manually instruct it to reappear.