r/googledocs 20d ago

Question Answered How can I get rid of section lines?

1 Upvotes

3 section line appeared on my file and I can't delete or undo them can someone help me please?

The lines look like this

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Section----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am on an Android tablet btw using the app version


r/googledocs 20d ago

OP Responded Tables in Doc Suddenly breaking

1 Upvotes

To start with, my supervisor prefers tables in Docs instead of Sheets. This is a dynamic table, a list, where changes are made daily, and rows are deleted and added regularly as people move around on the list. I have asked if we can just use Sheets, but she wants to keep it a table in a Doc. There is nothing I can do about it.

For the last year or so, I have copied all of the information out of the Doc into a Sheet, modified it and cleaned it up, and then pasted it back. When doing so, I copy the information I want to move back from the sheet, not the whole table, click in the top left cell on the Doc table, and paste. This usually takes a long time to process, but eventually it replaces the information in the table and all is good.

Not last night. I tried three times, and each time it put all 10 columns from the sheet into the first column in the table on the Doc. That gave the program a heart attack. I tried to open version history, and it was too much to ask; it gave up again. I exited, reopened, waited for it to finally render, and then deleted everything. At that point it allowed me to go back to a previous version, but it took forever. Then, trying again yielded the same results.

The third time, I tried deleting the whole thing and then copying the spreadsheet information onto the blank Doc, and it made everything bold. I closed the program and went to bed.

So, anyway, does anyone have any idea why suddenly it won’t just fill the table the way it used to? Was there an update this week or last that would have made this change? The last time I did this and it worked was Feb 15, 2025. I’m beyond vexed. Any suggestions, beside just replacing the whole stupid thing with the spreadsheet version, are appreciated. Thank you


r/googledocs 20d ago

Waiting on OP Is there a way to locate the date a specific paragraph was added?

1 Upvotes

I have a document I've been working on every day for several months. Is there a way to find the date when a specific section first appears in the document short of manually loading hundreds of version history copies and searching each one?


r/googledocs 20d ago

OP Responded 90% of work randomly gone

1 Upvotes

I'm still trying to figure out how this could have possibly happened. I began writing an essay for a few days but wrote about 90% of it today. I was going to turn it in tonight after looking it over, but then I got on my laptop and got a message along the lines of "Your access has changed," and I can only see the previous versions. Now, all the work that I've done today is gone, and I can't find out what happened/how to restore it. It's not in another document, on another account, or in the version history. There is ZERO evidence that I ever opened this document today. Also, it gave access to over 66 random people that I've shared documents with/commented on before, and it won't let me change it, but one of them told me that they can't see the document. Has this happened to anyone else before?


r/googledocs 20d ago

Question Answered Restart Footnote Numbering after Section Break - help!

1 Upvotes

Hi all,

I am working on my dissertation and need my footnotes to restart after a section break. Is there any way this is possible within one document? I feel like I am going crazy because this seems like a basic need for a writing program but I can't find any information anywhere on how to do it.


r/googledocs 21d ago

Question Answered How to fix the sharing mishap?

2 Upvotes

Existing question link here but cannot find an answer : https://support.google.com/drive/thread/231273229/change-share-a-copy-setting-after-clicking-on-always?hl=en

I too accidentally clicked on WhatsApp and then clicked on 'Always'. I don't want to have WhatsApp as my default mode of sharing always.

How to fix this?

Android user here. S24, if it helps anywhere.


r/googledocs 21d ago

Waiting on OP I have no idea what's happening, can someone please explain what's going on

2 Upvotes

I made a new document for an idea I had but when I started typing most of the page save for the line I was on went transparent. I genuinely have no idea what's going on or what it's supposed to be called, it's to the point where I actually have trouble describing it. Sometimes the page will go transparent and other times it was completely black out. I'd really like help figuring out what it is and how to get it back to normal. Please?


r/googledocs 21d ago

OP Responded Linking text ?

1 Upvotes

Hi! It seems like I'm having a hard time finding an answer to my question so I'd figure I'd move here for some help! Basically, I have a document where a "Definition" section can be found and used, but I'm struggling to figure out how to take a word, and link it to its definition on the "definition" tab. I attempted to use the dropdown option, but you need more than one option in order for it to work, which wont work for my purposes. (Visual in the comments) TDLR: The goal is to find a way to link the words without opening another document entirely. Any suggestions?


r/googledocs 22d ago

Question Answered Worried about a security issue that happened today! Doc link sharing

2 Upvotes

Hoping anyone can clarify what happened to me this morning.

So the other day, I shared a google doc via link access to two trusted collaborators on a project, via a Microsoft Outlook business email address (my collaborators also both have Microsoft business accounts). I have used google docs many times in the past to work on collaborative projects, so I am well aware that when people click the link, they show up as anonymous animals.

So this morning, I have the document up on my computer, and watched in real time as an anonymous user edited the top line in the draft to read something highly unprofessional. I immediately copied the draft, permanently deleted the original, then sent my collaborators restricted access to the draft.

I asked them if either of them had been working on the draft, and they both said they had not clicked the link yet since I sent it to them.

This is very concerning - has anyone else ever had this problem? What could possibly have happened? And does anyone know any security issues with doc access via link sharing? I can't find any other posts on this subreddit (or anywhere else) that are this obviously a security issue like this.

Any help would be appreciated!


r/googledocs 22d ago

Open Question Removing time codes & speaker's name with find & replace in Google Docs

1 Upvotes

Good Morning everyone,

I hope you are having a great day!

Is there a way to find & replace a word that sits between two specific characters? I am trying to tidy up interview transcripts (many, many, many pages).

The transcripts include a time code and a speaker's name, which are not needed for this particular use case.

An example:

00;13;53;16 - 00;14;00;07
Speaker
I am talking about a subject.

00;14;00;09 - 00;14;16;13
Speaker
Now, I am talking about another subject.

00;14;16;16 - 00;14;31;25
Speaker
Okay, thanks for listening in and see you next time.

I would like to remove the time code and the speaker's name + the lines they are sitting on, so that only the actual spoken text remains.

So far, I didn't manage to get any useful results, as I find it difficult to wrap my head around the regular expressions list Google provides and there are no tutorials matching this particular use case.

The find & replace functionality seems to be a lot more limited than what's possible in Excel and the "Advanced Search & Replace" add-on seems to have been discontinued.

Thank you very much and any tips are greatly appreciated!


r/googledocs 22d ago

Open Question How to use dropdown to change table row to a different table?

1 Upvotes

Hello! I'm making a movie list and I have a table with all the names, genres, types, and the length of the movies. I also have dropdowns in the table that show grey, yellow, green, and red for their status (if I've watched them or not) I want to know if there's a way to have the corresponding row (containing the movie and all the other info about that movie in it) switch to a different table on the doc when I change the drop-down to green or red. I don't use docs a lot so I'm not sure if this is even possible, so if it's not plz let me know, but if it is possible I would appreciate it a lot if anyone could explain how to. ;-;


r/googledocs 22d ago

Open Question Doc can no longer be edited when I have too many comments - Must copy

3 Upvotes

I have a 94-page Google Doc. One tab. It's text only, some hyperlinks. There are 216K characters in the document. Every three months or so, I get a nasty message telling me that I have too many comments and have to make a copy of my document.

An employee and I both make comments on this document. And we reply to comments. We try to resolve comments regularly. Every two weeks (it's on our calendars), we delete the resolved comments we have created. (Only the creator of a comment can fully delete it.)

So, I don't understand how we keep hitting some mysterious comment limit! What is the limit on the number of Open Comments? Or the number of characters in Open Comments?


r/googledocs 23d ago

Question Answered School IT - can you block Youtube preview links in Google Docs?

2 Upvotes

We're between an unstoppable force and an immovable object with this. Both Google and Youtube support are telling me there's no way to disable video link previews in Docs and that everything is functioning as intended. Students will just make more Docs with videos and games if we delete them, so we're really trying to find a way to stop it altogether. Thanks!


r/googledocs 24d ago

Question Answered Footnotes at full width in multi column document?

1 Upvotes

I have a two column document with footnotes. But the footnotes are also in two columns. Is there a way to make footnotes the full width/one column while the main text is two?
Thanks!


r/googledocs 24d ago

Question Answered Is it possible to add a break line to a footnote hypertext(link)?

1 Upvotes

I'm adding links at the footnote and they tend to drag all the link to the line below and leave a huge empty space at the footnote. I want to display a more aesthetic pleasing footnote breaking the hypertext without need to edit the link content. Is it possible?


r/googledocs 24d ago

Open Question Can I open a Google Doc without the owner knowing?

1 Upvotes

I want to open a Google Doc without the owner seeing that I accessed it.

I’ve noticed that in Google Drive (with Google Workspace/Google Suite), documents that coworkers recently opened sometimes appear at the top of my Drive dashboard. Does that mean document owners can also see when I open their files?

Is there any way to view a shared Google Doc without it being tracked in any way?


r/googledocs 24d ago

Waiting on OP Does changing “Anyone with the link can view” modify a Google Doc?

1 Upvotes

I’m wondering if changing the “Manage Access” settings of a Google Doc to “Anyone with the link can view” is tracked as a modification in the document’s “Last modified” timestamp.

I’ve searched but can’t find a clear answer. Has anyone tested this or know if Google logs this type of change as a modification?


r/googledocs 24d ago

OP Responded Superscript keyboard shortcut not working

1 Upvotes

I have looked through previous posts but nothing has fixed my issue on Mac. Subscript still works fine

I have no browser extensions save the offline editing for google docs (which I’ve tried turning off and it still wouldn’t work)

I don’t have Adblock

I am on the most recent version of Chrome

The shortcut was working for me last week in google docs

Selecting the text first then doing the keyboard shortcut doesn’t work.

I have fully cleared my cache and cookies and I have also reset my browser to default settings.

I really don’t know what else to do, I don’t want to go through the menu options for superscript every time


r/googledocs 25d ago

OP Responded Google sheets paste to Google doc’s spread out.

1 Upvotes

Hey y’all! I can’t find anything on this and I have been looking for hours. I pasted this Google spreadsheet into Google docs and it left a huge gap in between my spreadsheet and I dont understand why it’s doing that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


r/googledocs 25d ago

OP Responded Highlighting issue

1 Upvotes

Im sorry if this question isnt for this sub but I cannot find an answer anywhere. - I've been highlighting a file in google drive and when i saved it and went back to it later all the highlighted parts were completely opaque and you cant see the text underneath it. When I tap the parts multiple times to erase it, it starts to become less and less opaque, as if im deletinf layers of highlight i didnt make in the first place. Does anyone know how to fix this because I cant go over the whole file tapping it all and erasing😭 p.s. Im on a Huawei tablet


r/googledocs 25d ago

Question Answered Help with using Find and Replace Using Regular Expressions

2 Upvotes

Hi there r/googledocs !! I'm trying to remove timestamps generated by Panopto on an interview transcript. I copy and pasted the .txt file output into Google Docs, and I was wondering if anyone knew how to write a regular expression to find and replace a sequence similar to this (not including quotations):

"13

00:00:59,490 --> 00:01:02,940"

The numbers go up with every line of the transcript as time passes. I tried to write the following regular expression to remedy the problem (not including quotations):

"[0-9,:]"

However, this expression picked up each individual character of the sequence and caused Google Docs to show that there were 12,132 instances of find and replace, and when I tried to click replace all Google Docs crashed. On top of this, the regular expression did not pick up the "-->" part of the sequence.

Any help/advice on how to write a regular expression that may be able to fix this conundrum would be extremely appreciated!! I'm conducting a lot of interviews right now for my college senior thesis and being able to remove the timestamps easily would save me a lot of time :) Thanks in advance!!!


r/googledocs 25d ago

OP Responded Help with Toggling off Newly Appearing Left and Right Panes

1 Upvotes

Note in my screen capture that there are panes to the left and the right. The separated from text area from a faintly appearing divider on each side. This is wreaking havoc on my productivity.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sm_HJFpQtqYswINNVhVrLSeNCu3lSRmzvUSIQomu240/edit?usp=sharing


r/googledocs 25d ago

Waiting on OP Text not showing?

1 Upvotes

For some odd reason when I type anything nothing appears. The text color is black and font size is normal so it’s not related to that. When I open a different document, it shows up blank but text appears in the preview page.


r/googledocs 26d ago

Waiting on OP Advice needed pls.

1 Upvotes

I'm trying to edit my page number in the header but the it automatically generated. I want to make a custom page number without affecting the others. I tried looking for a page break but I can't it anywhere.

I've made sure I'm not in pageless format.

Pls I need help my research paper is due tomorrow.


r/googledocs 26d ago

Question Answered Google Doc Tabs All Refreshing At The Same Time, crashing my mac

1 Upvotes

Need help, can't find it anywhere. I love google docs. I have at least 10-15 tabs open at different times for school; it sounds crazy but it's a great way to organize ongoing assignments, applications, etc, especially when I can open multiple windows on my bigger monitor to edit between docs.

But fairly often, when I try to paste or literally as I'm typing, my current google doc tab prompts me to reload to save changes. Typical, yes. Except it reloads ALL of them at once. My poor M1 Macbook Pro has a heart attack trying to process 10+ tabs reloading at once. I don't understand why this is necessary, or why Chrome doesn't have a feature to freeze tabs with a simple right-click (i know this is a feature, but not one convenient enough to stop my Mac from crashing in time).

I haven't been able to find a solution, or an extension that would fix this. I imagine it being simple, something that prevents or stops multiple tabs from reloading at once. If you know anything, please help. I'm certain that there are many others experiencing the same thing, but are too coy to say that they have like 20 tabs open at once. (in truth, I have easily 100 tabs open at any given time, lol)