Google Docs already supported a few Markdown autocorrections for bulleted and numbered lists, as well as checkboxes, according to the company. However, you can now use Markdown to add headings, bold and italicize text (or both), strikethrough (though it’s done with a – on either side of your content instead of the standard -), and links.
Google is Introducing Markdown Support for the Docs Web Version
In order to enable the feature, Go to Tools > Preferences and check the “Automatically detect Markdown” box. If you don’t see it, it’s possible it hasn’t been rolled out to your account yet, as Google said it might take “more than 15 days” for everyone to see it. It’s probably a matter of personal taste whether you like this feature or not. People who use Markdown to get full control of their text (without having to deal with HTML’s irritating closing tags) are unlikely to enjoy Google’s new feature. However, if you merely want to use Markdown as a shortcut to formatting and don’t mind dealing with plaintext, Google’s method may be more user-friendly. For example, instead of choosing text and clicking Command / Control + L to insert a link, you can just input a few brackets and parentheses. Google says the feature is disabled by default — which is probably a good thing because it’s easy to imagine a lot of people being confused if typing a pound sign in front of something turned it into a header. So you will have to activate the feature manually as we discussed above. Check out? Google seems to be shutting down Hangouts gradually
