Formatting marks in GDocs

[dalkesm]

Being able to conveniently turn on/off formatting marks in Word was golden.  Now that I'm using GDocs 99% of the time, I'm frustrated with not finding a way to show formatting marks.  Apparently, you have to download an Extension in order to do this.  Which I did - and it works like cr&p.  Anybody else have a hack for this or can tell me if this is an upcoming inbuilt feature for GDocs?

[bill_pier3 · Accepted solution]

This would be a great feature request for your specific purposes.  I checked and to my surprise this feature is not yet submitted as a new idea, so please do submit one.

Formatting was by design originally hidden from Docs, given the focus on content over format.  For most use cases I think this is a good thing, and as a cloud-based collaborative editor it has other advantages, even if formatting isn't its strong suit.

[christiannewman · Accepted solution]

As someone who loves the clutter-free experience sans-marks, I'm curious what type of documents you work with, and why formatting marks are helpful. Mind sharing some more detail? And yes, please do post this (along with details of your use case) in the Idea Exchange forum and be sure to add the Editors tag (which encompasses Docs, Sheets, Slides).

[christiannewman · Accepted solution]

@dalkesm makes total sense. I recommend adding this to the Idea Exchange forum (if you haven't already) as I'm a believer in flexibility and will gladly upvote your idea for you.

Another thing you can do is add 'in-app feedback' (in Google Docs go Help / Help / Send Feedback) and describe your feature request.

Product managers are listening.

[bill_pier3 · Accepted solution]

This would be a great feature request for your specific purposes.  I checked and to my surprise this feature is not yet submitted as a new idea, so please do submit one.

Formatting was by design originally hidden from Docs, given the focus on content over format.  For most use cases I think this is a good thing, and as a cloud-based collaborative editor it has other advantages, even if formatting isn't its strong suit.

[christiannewman · Accepted solution]

As someone who loves the clutter-free experience sans-marks, I'm curious what type of documents you work with, and why formatting marks are helpful. Mind sharing some more detail? And yes, please do post this (along with details of your use case) in the Idea Exchange forum and be sure to add the Editors tag (which encompasses Docs, Sheets, Slides).

[dalkesm]

I work with lots of large legal documents with special formatting (think 200-page agreements with indexes, exhibits, numerous section breaks, numbering systems with multiple levels, bullets,  complex numbering systems, bookmarks, tables etc) that needs to be carried consistently throughout. 

Being able to see the formatting marks, allows for copying and pasting without carrying the formatting to the pasted area. 

OR . . .

it allows for carrying the section formatting to another area of the document, so that one doesn't have to re-apply the formatting. 

The formatting mark contains ALL of the formatting codes for the previous section.  ie. if I have a paragraph that contains "12-pt space after paragraph" or "1.5 times spacing", an "indent", "centering", and maybe even a "special font" for just that paragraph, I can copy and paste that paragraph including the formatting marker (provided I can see it) and that paragraph will paste with all of the attributes contained in that formatting marker.  If I don't want the custom formatting contained in that paragraph, I would copy all of the paragraph except for the formatting marker (provided I can see it) and the paragraph would paste "plain", without any of the custom formatting.  Also, being able to see the formatting marker, allows me to insert my cursor just in front of it and press the "enter" key and the formatting will carry through to the next section.  If I place the cursor "after" the formatting marker, I can start a new line without carrying forward the formatting from the previous paragraph.  This helps out a lot when trying to not get the subsequent paragraph to carry on the numbering/bulleting system from the previous paragraph. 

There are so many uses, I could go on and on.  It also helps out when inserting "page break" and "continuous next page" breaks, so that you don't accidentally pick up the formatting from these breaks and wonder why all of a sudden you have an extra blank page when all you did was press "enter".  Formatting marks take the guess-work out of wondering why your sections behave the way they do when all you did was press enter, or when you copied something and it didn't copy exactly, or using them to re-create a section exactly, without having to re-create all of the formatting.  It even works for tables, drawings and everything in between.  If you can see that formatting mark, and make sure you copy it along with your table, you can re-create that table exactly without having to re-format.  But you have to be able to "see" the formatting mark and select/not select it, otherwise you risk not capturing all of the formatting or capturing formatting that you don't want to carry forward.

I hope this makes sense😎

[christiannewman · Accepted solution]

@dalkesm makes total sense. I recommend adding this to the Idea Exchange forum (if you haven't already) as I'm a believer in flexibility and will gladly upvote your idea for you.

Another thing you can do is add 'in-app feedback' (in Google Docs go Help / Help / Send Feedback) and describe your feature request.

Product managers are listening.

[dalkesm]

Sounds good.  Will do!

[christiannewman · Accepted solution]

I just came across this, which seems like it's related to your idea.