Why Do URLs Turn Blue?
Google Docs is designed to assume that if you are typing a web address, you want people to be able to click on it. By default, if you type a URL like www.google.com and press the spacebar or hit Enter, Google Docs instantly converts that plain text into a live, clickable, blue, underlined hyperlink.
If you are writing a standard office memo, this is helpful. However, if you are writing a print-only document (where clickable links are useless), a technical manual, or a list of raw URLs for a developer to copy and paste into a configuration file, the blue formatting is annoying. Furthermore, clicking a live link accidentally while trying to edit the text will throw you out of your document and into a new browser tab. You can force Google Docs to leave your URLs as plain, black text.
How to Stop Automatic Hyperlink Formatting
You can disable the automatic link creation in the Google Docs Preferences menu.
- Open your web browser and navigate to any open document in Google Docs.
- At the top of the screen, click on the Tools menu.
- Scroll down the dropdown list and click on Preferences.
- A popup window will appear with two tabs at the top. Ensure you are on the General tab.
- Look at the very top of the list of checkboxes for the option labelled Automatically detect links.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click the blue OK button at the bottom of the window to save your changes.
From this point forward, you can type as many URLs, IP addresses, and email addresses as you want. Google Docs will completely ignore them, leaving them formatted as standard text. If you ever need to create a hyperlink manually, you can simply highlight the text and press Ctrl + K.