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Removing “small caps” from a Google Docs document

If you’ve battled with documents imported to Google Docs, you’ve probably come across a document which features formatting that is shown, but is not editable in Google Docs. A typical example is “small caps” – that typographic style where all letters are transformed into capitals, but actual capital letters looks bigger. Like this, if you take the sentence “This Is Small Caps”:

This Is Small Caps

Probably wisely, Google Docs doesn’t support this. However, because it doesn’t, getting rid of it is tricky if it’s embedded in a style (let’s say a Heading 1). Clearing formatting doesn’t work. However, I’ve found the solution (which also doesn’t require any add-ons):

  1. Create some plain (non-small caps) text
  2. Copy that text (Ctrl-C)
  3. Paste it into the middle of an example of the offending small caps text (Ctrl-V). The pasted text should retain its non small-caps style, but will still be classed as being Heading 1 text
  4. Make sure your cursor is in the non-small caps text you just pasted
  5. Right click -> “Update ‘Heading 1’ to match”. Bingo!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2018 at 21:46 and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Removing “small caps” from a Google Docs document”

  1. Mike says:
    January 19, 2019 at 18:42

    Thanks so much. This tip enabled me to help a colleague. I looked long and hard and tried two add ons before getting success with this.

  2. Joseph says:
    November 25, 2020 at 04:41

    Thanks! This helped me get rid of small caps my resume writer used but was getting messed up in an Applicant Tracking System.

  3. Marie-Anne Nonyme says:
    September 17, 2021 at 01:15

    Thank you soooooooo much!

  4. Susan Price says:
    March 3, 2022 at 17:58

    You are the BOMB, Tim!