The Accidental Headings
Google Docs is programmed to anticipate your formatting needs. One of its hidden behaviors relates to how it interprets styles. If you type a short sentence on a single line and manually highlight it and make it bold, Google Docs may assume you are trying to create a section heading. If you press Enter to start the next paragraph, Docs will sometimes automatically apply that bold formatting to the new text as well, forcing you to manually un-bold your writing before you can continue drafting your document.
Clearing the Inherited Style
To stop Google Docs from automatically making the next line of text bold because it inherited the styling of a previous, manually bolded sentence, you must utilize the “Clear formatting” tool rather than just hitting backspace.
If you find yourself stuck in a loop where every new line is automatically bolded (or italicized), do not just click the “B” button on the toolbar to turn it off, as this sometimes only fixes that specific word and the bolding returns on the next line. Instead, press Enter to create your new, unwanted bold line. Highlight any text on that line. Now, go to the top menu bar, click on Format, scroll to the very bottom of the drop-down menu, and select Clear formatting (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+\ on Windows / Cmd+\ on Mac). This completely strips the invisible style tags from that line, returning it to standard “Normal text” and breaking the cycle of automatic bolding.