The Blue Underline
Google Docs is designed for the modern, connected web. Because of this, it assumes that anytime you type a string of characters resembling a web address (like “example.com” or an email address), you want that text to be a clickable hyperlink. To signify this, Google Docs automatically changes the text color to bright blue and adds a solid underline. While this is helpful for digital documents, if you are drafting a formal academic paper, a printed newsletter, or a legal contract where specific branding and clean typography are required, the sudden appearance of blue underlined text ruins the aesthetic and breaks strict formatting guidelines.
Removing the Hyperlink Formatting
To maintain a clean visual style and stop Google Docs from automatically underlining links and changing their color, you must disable the auto-linking feature entirely.
Open a Google Docs document. In the top menu bar, click on Tools. From the dropdown menu, select Preferences. A new dialogue box will appear with two tabs at the top. Ensure you are on the General tab. Look through the list of checkboxes for the option labelled Automatically detect links. By default, this is checked. Click the checkbox to remove the checkmark. Click OK to save the changes. From now on, when you type a URL or email address, Google Docs will treat it as standard text, maintaining your current font color and avoiding the underline. If you ever *do* want a clickable link, you can simply highlight the text and press Ctrl+K to add it manually without the auto-formatting.