Google Docs adds a feature we thought it already had: non-printing characters

Google is including a function to Google Docs that permits you to see non-printing characters comparable to areas, tabs, and numerous sorts of breaks, the corporate introduced in a weblog publish on Monday. The choice, which might be out there within the View menu, may help make enhancing a doc simpler by displaying you precisely how its formatted moderately than making you rely purely on what you’ll be able to see to inform whether or not one thing is a tab or a bunch of areas. It can be extra useful when troubleshooting tousled formatting.

Prior to now, folks have needed to depend on third-party add-ons for Google Docs to see the non-printing characters. Whereas it’s not a function that many individuals may have a lot use for (extra on that in a second), there was positively demand for it. A request on Google’s IssueTracker obtained over 80 votes from folks saying they had been impacted by the lack to see the characters. Some additionally left impassioned feedback: “My staff agrees that this can be a main difficulty with google docs,” wrote one consumer in 2019, whereas somebody requested “How has this not been made out there but??” lower than per week in the past.

On the opposite facet of the coin, I, and a number of other of my colleagues, had been stunned to listen to that the app didn’t have this function till now. Apparently, none of us had ever come throughout the necessity for it or thought to test for it — and sure, that does appear a bit odd looking back, provided that we’re all writers, however I assume we simply assumed it was there.

I used to be additionally stunned that Google Docs didn’t have it provided that I bear in mind studying about non-printing characters in an elementary college laptop class; Microsoft Phrase has been capable of present them for just about your entire time I’ve been alive. (Certainly one of my co-workers recalled that his dad and mom had the function on when he was rising up, which made him assume that was simply how digital paperwork labored.)

Nonetheless, the addition is healthier late than by no means, and I’m certain there are some Google Docs customers which are very excited by this announcement. In accordance with the weblog publish, the function might be out there to all enterprise, academic, and private accounts, and needs to be totally rolled out by February seventh.