The Presumptive Formatting
Google Docs often attempts to intuitively format your documents based on common writing styles. If you manually hit the “Tab” key to indent the first line of a paragraph, Google Docs will sometimes interpret this as a desire to indent every subsequent paragraph in the document. Consequently, when you press “Enter” to start a new line, the editor automatically inserts a tab space, pushing your cursor inward. While this is helpful for traditional essay writing, it is incredibly frustrating if you are drafting a script, writing poetry, or creating a document that relies on flush-left alignment for the majority of the text.
Clearing the Default Tab Stops
To stop Google Docs from aggressively assuming you want every paragraph indented, you must reset the paragraph styling and ensure there are no lingering tab stops forcing the cursor inward.
Open the Google Doc where this issue is occurring. Click anywhere inside a paragraph that is incorrectly indented. First, ensure you haven’t accidentally applied a special indent. Go to Format in the top menu bar, select Align & indent, and click Indentation options. Ensure both the “Left” and “Right” indents are set to 0, and the “Special indent” dropdown is set to None. Click Apply. Next, look at the horizontal ruler across the top of the document. If you see a small blue rectangle (the first line indent marker) sitting to the right of the left margin triangle, click and drag that blue rectangle all the way back to the left so it sits flush on top of the triangle. Your document will now respect your manual enters without automatically tabbing inward.