The Accidental Math Mode
Google Docs includes a robust “Equation Toolbar” designed for students and academics to easily insert complex mathematical formulas, Greek letters, and calculus symbols into their documents. However, this toolbar is easily triggered by a keyboard shortcut (often Alt+I, E on Windows). If you accidentally hit this combination while typing quickly, a new, specialized toolbar suddenly appears below your main formatting ribbon, and a small blue bounding box appears in your text. If you are writing a standard essay or a business proposal, this sudden shift into mathematical formatting is jarring and interrupts your workflow.
Banishing the Math Tools
To clean up your interface and completely disable the Equation Toolbar, you simply need to toggle it off through the primary view settings; you do not need to delete the formula box you accidentally created.
First, click anywhere outside of the blue equation bounding box in your document to return to standard text entry. If you simply press Backspace to delete the box, the toolbar will often remain visible at the top of the screen. To permanently hide the toolbar, navigate to the very top menu bar and click on View. In the dropdown list, look for the option labelled Show equation toolbar. Because the toolbar is currently visible, there will be a checkmark next to this option. Click on Show equation toolbar once to remove the checkmark. The specialized math ribbon will immediately vanish from your screen, restoring your standard Google Docs interface.