Inserting Symbols To Your Files In Google Docs

Sentences, paragraphs, essays, and much more documents, would never be complete without the addition of symbols or special characters. Try imagining a block of text without any special symbols or characters on it. Looking at it would make you feel empty, right?

Symbols and these characters exist not to serve as decorations or accessories in a document but to help its readers understand a specific message in a more precise manner. The addition of arrows helps us know which direction to follow; emojis make us understand the current emotions; even punctuations greatly inform us when to pause or emphasize specific ideas in a text.

Thus, inserting them into your files is one of the keys to creating a better document. Here’s how to do it when working in Google Docs.

Adding Symbols With the Menu Bar

Whatever the symbol you will add in Google Docs, you’ll always start with accessing one of the options in the menu bar: Insert. We don’t want to skip to that, so here’s a detailed step-by-step process you can follow.

1. To begin, you have to open the Google Docs web browser on your computer and make sure that your account is logged in.
2. Afterward, begin choosing a document to add a symbol to.
3. On that file, click “Insert” from the menu bar, then select “Special Characters” where a new pop-up window will appear on your screen.

Now, there are three different ways you can insert or search for symbols that you’d like to add to your files —manual method, search bar, and drawing the symbol. We’ll discuss all of them in this guide, so make sure to note the process for each.

Manually Look For a Symbol

If you initially have no idea what specific symbol to add to your document, you can use this method. Although a bit time-consuming, it allows you to browse all the available characters in the drop-down menu.

Select on the drop-down menu for the different buttons to see the other options for the symbols.

Search For the Symbol

Utilize this method if you know what character or symbol you are looking for. All you have to do is type in a keyword or a description of the character you want to find in the search bar. This will save you a lot of time and effort because the options will be narrowed down, and everything will be related to the word you entered.

Draw the Character

If none of the previously mentioned methods works for you, and you still can’t find the symbol you’re looking for, you can try this method. There’s a space on the right side of the pop-up window for you to draw the character or symbol you’re searching for.

If the platform recognizes the image you draw, the options or characters resembling it will immediately appear on the left side of the panel. Yet if you wish to repeat the whole drawing, you can undo it by clicking the arrow in the lower-right corner of the drawing box.

Whatever method you use, remember that once the symbol you’ve chosen will automatically appear in the document after clicking on it.

Finishing Thoughts

Now that you’ve learned where to find symbols and how to add them to your document, I’ll assume that you can be better at creating a detailed and understandable document. Whether you simply want to add dashes, emojis, arrows, equation symbols, and even the basic punctuations, you can freely do so by following the steps indicated in this guide!