Google Docs is a great tool for managing your work. However, sometimes you may need to use pageless format. This is when you use the @ symbol to represent each row and column in a document. For example, if you have a document with 10 sheets of paper, you would use the following: @sheet1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331

Do you want to insert a wide table or large image in your document that doesn’t shrink? Do you have no plans to print your document? Check out Pageless format in Google Docs.

About Pageless Format in Google Docs

Pageless format in Google Docs provides you with a continuous page without page breaks as in the default Pages view. So you can compose your document without worrying about transitioning between pages.

RELATED: How to Add, Show, and Remove Page and Section Breaks in Google Docs

This format also gives you space for wide items like tables and images without shrinking them to fit. For a table, you’ll see a scroll bar at the bottom so you can view its columns from left to right easily.

Different than Pages format, Pageless does not display headers, footers, or watermarks. You also won’t be able to add things like page numbers, columns, or footnotes. However, you can add and see these elements if you switch from Pageless back to Pages format.

As Google states, this format is meant to help those collaborating on a document and not likely needing to format the document for printing.

Comments and emoji reactions remain on the right side of the document as usual. And any sidebars you open for things like Image Options display on the right as normal too.

RELATED: How to Hide or Remove Comments in Google Docs

Switch to Pageless Format

Switching to Pageless from the default Pages format takes only a moment. Select File > Page Setup from the menu.

In the pop-up window, choose “Pageless” at the top. You’ll see a brief description of this format with an option to change the background color. You can also choose “Set as Default” to use this format for new documents moving forward. Click “OK” when you finish.

Change the Text Width

A feature of Pageless format in Google Docs you may want to adjust is the text width. This allows you to use the format and keep your text as-is or take advantage of the full width of the document.

RELATED: How to Keep Lines of Text Together in Google Docs

Select View > Text Width in the menu and pick an option from the pop-out menu. You can pick narrow, medium, or wide and will see your document update immediately.

If you’re collaborating on your document, others do not see your text width choice.

Pageless Versus Pages Format 

Here we have a document in Pageless format using a wide table and panoramic image. As you can see, you have plenty of space to accommodate these types of elements. Also note the scroll bar below the table as mentioned earlier.

If you create the document using the same elements in the Pages format, you can see that the table and image are sized smaller. 

So if you have a document that would benefit from a wide work area more than it would from headers, footers, and page numbers, Pageless is the way to do.

While the intent of Pageless format is for online work, you can still print the document if needed. Just note that Google Docs formats the printed version to accommodate the elements in the document as you can see in the print preview screenshot below.

When you have document items that are wider than what Google Docs allows by default, give the Pageless format a try and see your document elements as they should be.

RELATED: How to Change the Page Color in Google Docs