The Markdown Shortcut Engine
To help writers format documents rapidly without lifting their hands from the keyboard, Google Docs includes built-in support for Markdown-style syntax. Markdown is a lightweight markup language where special characters dictate formatting. By default, Docs monitors your keystrokes for these specific patterns. One of the most common automatic formatting actions is text emboldening. If you type a word or phrase surrounded by double asterisks (like **important**) and then press the spacebar, Google Docs will automatically delete the asterisks and convert the text between them to bold font.
While this is incredibly efficient for users who are already familiar with Markdown from platforms like Reddit or GitHub, it can be extremely frustrating for technical writers, programmers, or mathematicians. If you are writing a document that actually requires double asterisks in plain text—such as writing out a math equation, detailing a wild-card search query, or explaining Markdown syntax to someone else—having Google Docs constantly intercept and “correct” your typing ruins your work. If you need asterisks to simply be asterisks, you must disable the Markdown detection engine.
How to Stop Automatic Bold Formatting
You can prevent Docs from interpreting Markdown syntax via the Preferences menu.
- Open your document in Google Docs.
- Look at the top toolbar and click on the Tools menu.
- Select Preferences from the dropdown list.
- In the Preferences window, ensure you are on the General tab.
- Look down the list for the checkbox labelled Automatically detect Markdown.
- Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark.
- Click the blue OK button to save your changes.
From now on, typing **text** will result in exactly those characters appearing on the screen as plain text, without triggering any automatic bold formatting. (You can still manually make text bold at any time by highlighting it and pressing `Ctrl + B` or `Cmd + B`).