How can I change the font in Google Docs just with keyboards shortcuts?

Question

Question

I have Google Docs open in the Google Chrome browser on a Mac. Now I select a piece of text and want to change it's font just with keyboard shortcuts -- without using the mouse.

Example before font change:

Example after font change to e.g. Courier New:

How do I do that?

What I have tried so far

I've read the Keyboard shortcuts for Google documents page, but haven't found anything useful.

There is the Ctrl+Shift+F keyboard shortcut to collaps the menu bar, which then displays the Search the menus (Alt+/) search box.

Menu before pressing Ctrl+Shift+F:

Menu after pressing Ctrl+Shift+F:

Now this search box is pretty awesome because I can just type "Courier New" and hit Enter. But! Alt+/ is not working! Why not? I can't get the focus into that search box.

At this point, I should perhaps note that the keyboard layout is set to German.

The US keyboard layout looks like this:

The German keyboard layout looks like this:

So the forward slash / is on the 7 key: Shift+7.

But when I press Alt+Shift+7, it opens the Mac OS X Help > Search menu:

I also switched to the US keyboard layout. But pressing Alt+Shift+7 (which is the key left of the right Shift key) produces the same effect.

I've also tried the forward slash key on the number block. No success.

Plus, I've tried Option+/ as documented on the Keyboard shortcuts for Google documents page (the Option key is the Alt key according to Wikipedia). No success either.

Is Mac OS X highjacking the keyboard shortcut?

Versions

• Google Chrome 31.0.1650.63
• Mac OS X 10.9.1

Answer 1

Update 28.02.2016

They seem to have updated the possible keyboard shortcuts. With the new keyboard shortcuts, it also works now on my keyboard with the German layout.

For Windows:

For OS X:

Source: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/179738?hl=en

Original answer

I found a workaround.

1. Select a piece of text in the document.
2. Ctrl+Alt+H opens the Help menu.
3. Arrow down puts the focus in the Search all menus menu.
4. Type "cour", hit Enter.

Answer 2

Not sure exactly what your use case is, but if your goal is to quickly apply a font repeatedly, the easiest way is to first select a block of text with the font you want, hit Command+Option+C to copy formatting, then each time you select the text you want to apply the font to, just hit Command+Option+V to paste formatting.

Note: Doesn't work the first time, but it'll work each subsequent time.

Answer 3

This answer is OFF-TOPIC.

For user interested to increase the font size:

● Option 1: Ctrl+Shift+, to decrease the font. Ctrl+Shift+; to increase.

● option 2: (if that doesn't work):

1. select a text in google doc
2. press Ctrl+Shift
3. try each keyboard key to see which one will increase your font

● Option 3: (if you need high increase/decrease). Instead of pressing multiple time your shortcut you can use this ahk script (just change the mouse position according to your screen size).

● Option 4: use a Tampermonkey script like this (it sets custom shortcuts to change the font color and highlight). You can do whatever you want with tampermonkey such as creating shortcuts to change the font color, highlight it specific color etc. It can basically override anything in your browser using a javascript script (I did not yet manage to change the font size Cf. my attempts in the script ― help needed.)

Answer 4

For Windows:

Using the information in other answers, I created an AutoHotkey script that can lets me apply my two most used fonts with a hotkey. If the following script exists named "AutoHotkey.ahk" in the Documents folder and AutoHotkey is running, Alt+c will change the font to Courier New (for mono-space) and Alt+a will change the font to Ariel (the standard font). Since this script relies on the Alt+/ hotkey to search through the menu item, it can probably be adapted to make any formatting change that uses the menu. Note: increase the delay milliseconds after Sleep if the script operation seems to get stuck in the middle, as the web page may not be ready for the next input yet.

#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
#Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

; Google docs font change shortcut: Courier New, for monospace
!c::
Send, !/
Sleep, 100
Send, Courier New
Sleep, 200
Send, {Enter}
return

; Google docs font change shortcut: Arial
!a::
Send, !/
Sleep, 100
Send, Arial
Sleep, 200
Send, {Enter}
return

Answer 5

Works for me on windows - I would suggest that OS X is hijacking the shortcut. You could possibly try overriding the Keyboard system preferences (I think it's in: System Preferences | Keyboard | Keyboard Shortcuts).

This search had some useful links.

Answer 6

If you have a certain font that you want to switch to. You can save that font to the Paragraph formatting (e.g. Normal text, Title, Subtitle, Heading 1, 2, 3..)

Do this by:

you can do this by selecting a text

1. switching to heading 1
2. writing something and then formatting it the way you want
3. updating the heading

Then you can just press Ctrl+Alt+1 and it will change the font to the preset font.

Answer 7

I'm using Firefox on top of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on top for Dell XPS 15

Shift + Ctrl + ,/. (or </>)

Works.

I've found this info by pressing Ctrl + ? (or /) which opens up the full list of shortcuts.

Answer 8

Hover on the button and you'll get the shortcut