'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
This handy Google Docs feature is a must-have hack to help writers stay focused
Let me set the stage.
You are working on a lengthy document within Google Drive. You get into your groove and every word and sentence is spilling out of you like sweat and blood at a hockey game. You are on fire and nothing can stop you.
Also: Are your Google Docs safe from AI training?
Until you have to type a word with an umlaut (or other accent characters) or you have to add a particular symbol. In that split second, your flow is stopped. Never fear…you can start writing again and hit that zone once again.
Only to be stopped by another non-standard character or word.
And so it goes.
I know this all too well. As a professional writer, those interruptions in creativity and flow can be costly with regard to time and concentration. Every time I am interrupted, you can count on doubling the amount of time for that interruption for me to get back into my groove.
Fortunately, there are always tools that can help you avoid such issues. One tool is Google Docs custom substitutions.
Essentially, these substitutions allow you to set a sort of shortcut for something that would otherwise take you more time than necessary.
Take, for instance, the word über. Without substitutions (at least with my keyboard layout/setup), I would have to first click Insert > Special Characters and then locate the ü character, add it, and then type the rest of the word. If it were a single instance of that word, it's really not all that much of a problem. But if the word pops up regularly, we're talking about quite a few interruptions.
Also: How to change the task overdue sound on Google Calendar so you never miss a deadline
Or maybe you have that one word (or a few words) that always trips you up. For me, that word is bureaucracy. For whatever reason, I can never get that word right on the first try. But thanks to Google Docs substitutions, I can always create a shortcut for it. You might have to regularly deal with medical terminology and who wants to type choledocholithiasis even once?
Instead, create a substitution. For example br for bureaucracy or ch for choledocholithiasis.
If that sounds like something that could make your writing life a bit easier, keep reading.
How to create Google Docs custom substitutions
What you'll need: The only things you'll need for this are a valid Google account and a web browser. That's it. Let's create your first substitution.
1. Open a Google Document
The first thing to do is go to either Google Docs or Google Drive. Once there, either create a new document or open an existing one.
2. Open Preferences
From within the document, click Tools > Preferences.
There are a number of tools you can access from this menu.
3. Create your substitution
Let's say you want to type uber and have it automatically changed to über. In the resulting pop-up window, type uber in the left column and then über in the right. When finished, click OK.
You can create as many shortcuts as you need.
Also: My favorite keyboard shortcut of all time (and it works on every browser)
Your first substitution is complete and your work within Google Documents can be a bit more efficient. There are a couple of things to keep in mind with substitutions. The first is that capitalization will be ignored. In other words, you can type your initials and expect it to substitute your full name with initial caps. Second, after you type the shortcut, you either have to type a space or hit Tab for the autocomplete to do its thing.
With a bit of creativity, you can create plenty of shortcuts to help give Google Docs a bit more streamlining. I use substitutions all the time and they never fail to give me a much-needed assist.