Google Docs provides a characteristic we thought it already had: non-printing characters

Google is including a characteristic to Google Docs that allows you to see non-printing characters akin to areas, tabs, and numerous kinds of breaks, the corporate introduced in a blog post on Monday. The choice, which might be out there within the View menu, will help make modifying a doc simpler by exhibiting you precisely how its formatted moderately than making you rely purely on what you possibly can see to inform whether or not one thing is a tab or a bunch of areas. It may also be extra useful when troubleshooting tousled formatting.

Prior to now, individuals have had to rely on third-party add-ons for Google Docs to see the non-printing characters. Whereas it’s not a characteristic that many individuals can 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 individuals saying they had been impacted by the lack to see the characters. Some additionally left impassioned feedback: “My group agrees that this can be a main problem 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 aspect 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 characteristic till now. Apparently, none of us had ever come throughout the necessity for it or thought to verify for it — and sure, that does appear a bit odd looking back, on condition 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 on condition that I keep in mind studying about non-printing characters in an elementary college laptop class; Microsoft Phrase has been in a position to present them for pretty much the entire time I’ve been alive. (Certainly one of my co-workers recalled that his dad and mom had the characteristic 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 positive there are some Google Docs customers which might be very excited by this announcement. Based on the weblog put up, the characteristic might be out there to all enterprise, instructional, and private accounts, and ought to be totally rolled out by February seventh.