How to Underline in Google Docs

When working in Google Docs, you have a ton of options for customization on how the text in your file appears.

When text formatting option that you have is the ability to underline your text.

With underlined text, you have a line under the words that you write, so essentially it looks as if you are writing on a line.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to underline in Google Docs.

Table of Contents

Regular Underline

Underlining in Google Docs is very easy to do.

This can be done through the:

Toolbar
Format menu
Keyboard shortcut

Here are the steps to do this:

1. Open your Google Doc. If you already have text that you want to underline, highlight the text. Otherwise, you can skip this step

2. In the toolbar at the top, select the “Underline” option. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl + U on your keyboard, or select Format>Text>Underline

3. You will now see that your highlighted text is underlined, and any future words that you write will have a line under it

Bottom Border Underline

There is another way we can create an underline in Google Docs.

We can use paragraph bordering to create a line under our text. The benefit of using this method is that there is a little bit of space between the text and the line, so if you don’t want the line to sit directly under the text, this is a good option.

Here are the steps to do this:

1. Open up your Google Doc. If you already have text that you want to add the line under, then highlight the text. In the top menu select Format>Paragraph styles

2. Then, select Borders and shading

3. Under the position setting, select Bottom border

4. You can select set border width, border style, and color here if desired. Select Apply when you are finished

This method is good because you have some customization options on your line, however, it takes much more time to get the lines into your file.

The line also will go all the way across the page instead of being only under the text.

How to Change Underline Color in Google Docs

Underline Color

Changing the color of an underline in Google Docs is not as straightforward as adding an underline.

There isn’t a very good option for changing the underline color.

You can change the text color, however, your text will also be that color.

To do this highlight your text and then select the text color option in the toolbar.

You can have a different colored underline by using the bottom border underline method, though this method can be tedious if you have a lot of text you need to underline.

Bottom Border Underline Color

For the bottom border color method:

1. Highlight any text that you want to add an underline for, or skip this step if you don’t have any text yet

2. In the top menu select Format>Paragraph styles

3. Select Borders and shading

4. In the Position setting, select Bottom border

5. Under Border color, select the color that you want your underline to be. Then select the Apply button

6. You will now see a line under your text that is the color you have chosen

How to Remove Underline in Google Docs

If you already have an underline in your file and you want to remove it—the process is the same as creating an underline.

You highlight the text that you want to remove the underline for, and then you can select the underline button in the toolbar.

Again you can also use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + U) or access it through the format menu (Format>Text>Underline)

Then your underline should be removed.

Closing Thoughts

There are many different formatting options that you have available in Google Docs. Underlining is just one of them

It can seem overwhelming at first when you are learning to use the program, but everything becomes easier after you have spent enough time with it.

We hope you found this tutorial useful!

More Google Docs Tutorials:
How to Write on an Image
How to Change Horizontal Line Thickness
Line Numbering
How to Change All Caps to Lowercase