How to Stop Google Docs from Automatically Changing Text to Superscript

The Unwanted Exponents

Google Docs features an aggressive auto-formatting system designed to make common text patterns look professional. One of its specific behaviors involves recognizing mathematical indicators or ordinal numbers. For example, if you type “1st”, “2nd”, or the trademark symbol “(tm)”, Docs will often automatically shrink those trailing letters and raise them above the baseline, converting them into superscript (1^st, 2^nd, ™).

While this is useful for writing formal essays or mathematical papers, it can be incredibly annoying in other contexts. If you are writing a technical document where specific formatting codes must remain in plain text, or if you simply prefer the modern, unformatted look of standard ordinal numbers, having your text constantly jump up into the air is frustrating. You are forced to manually highlight the tiny letters and undo the superscript formatting every single time. To maintain strict control over your text baseline, this automatic conversion should be disabled.

How to Stop Automatic Superscript Formatting

You can turn off this specific text replacement via the Preferences menu.

1. Open a document in Google Docs.
2. Look at the top toolbar and click on Tools.
3. Select Preferences from the dropdown menu.
4. In the Preferences window, click on the Substitutions tab at the top.
5. Scroll down the list of automatic text replacements until you find the specific entries that are causing you trouble (such as the rules that convert (tm) or ordinal numbers).
6. Click the checkbox next to the offending rule to remove the checkmark, or click the “X” on the far right to delete the rule entirely.
7. Click the blue OK button to save your changes.

From now on, Google Docs will respect exactly what you type. Your characters will remain in a straight line on the baseline, and you will only get superscript formatting when you explicitly apply it via the Format > Text > Superscript menu.