Ah, technology.
It tries to be so helpful.
Sometimes, too helpful.
And Google Doc’s automatic capitalization feature, while handy in many cases, can be quite a nuisance when lowercase is preferred.
Auto capitalization, to be clear, occurs when the first letter of the sentence is automatically capitalized within the Google Docs document.
In today’s tutorial, I’m going to walk you through the exact steps required to turn this helpful to the point of annoyance feature off entirely on both desktop and mobile applications.
How to turn off auto-capitalization on desktop
Utilize the following steps to turn off auto-capitalization in a Google Docs desktop application.
1. Navigate to the Tools dropdown and select the Preferences option (Tools > Preferences)
2. In the Preferences window, Uncheck the box for Automatically Capitalize Words (under the General Tab)
3. Press the blue OK button to save your changes
That’s it! You’re done!
Don’t forget, this change will become the default for any new Google Doc that you create going forward. So if you wish to turn it back on in the future, you will need to do so manually by going back into the Preferences menu and turning the Automatically Capitalize Words feature back on.
Unfortunately, there is no keyboard shortcut to easily toggle this setting on and off as needed.
Just remember, with auto-capitalization disabled, you will need to manually employ capitalization where you actually want it. You can do this by using either the Shift Key on your keyboard or toggling Caps Lock on and off as needed.
How to turn off auto-capitalization on mobile devices
At the time of this writing, there is unfortunately no way to turn off the auto-capitalization feature in either the Google Drive mobile app or the Google Docs mobile app.
However, there is a workaround.
You can instead, turn off auto-capitalization in your phone’s system settings.
But be warned, this change will impact every text-based app on your phone – not just the Google Docs app – including your text messages and e-mails. With that said, it’s easily reversible. It’s just something to keep in mind.
Below I will provide instructions on how to turn off auto-capitalization on both iOS and Android phones.
How to turn off auto-capitalization on Android
- Open your phone’s system Settings
- Search for, and select Text Corrections
- Toggle Auto Capitalization off
By default, the toggle switch will normally be blue if the feature is turned on, and gray if the feature is turned off.
Again, if you wish to reverse this change, you will need to go back into your system settings app later and toggle Auto Capitalization back on.
How to turn off auto-capitalization on Apple iOS
- Open your phone’s system Settings
- Select General > Keyboard*
- Toggle Auto-Capitalization off.
By default, the toggle switch will normally be green if the feature is turned on, and gray if the feature is turned off.
*Pro-Tip: If you are using a hardware keyboard instead of the default virtual keyboard – such as an external bluetooth device – select Hardware Keyboard.
Again, if you wish to reverse this change on your iPhone or iPad, you will need to go back into your system settings app later and toggle Auto Capitalization back on.
Are you still having issues?
If you’ve followed each of the above steps carefully but are still having issues with auto-capitalization in Google Docs, it might not be a Google Docs app problem at all. You might simply have the Caps Lock key on your keyboard turned on.
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