How to do a Superscript in Google Docs on Windows and Mac‍

Written by: Hrishikesh Pardeshi, Founder at Flexiple, buildd & Remote Tools.
Last updated: Sep 03, 2024

Google Docs is a powerful and free word processing program that is extremely convenient to use because of its universal cloud-based accessibility and functional and clean UI.

It is widely used for various types of personal and professional use-cases, like drafting letters, creating guidelines, or booklets. At the same time, Google Docs is also used by students and academicians for documenting data and creating research reports.

In such applications, it is very important to keep the Google Docs looking highly professional and intuitive. For this, text content such as citations, footnotes, mathematical formulae, chemical formulae, among others, require proper formatting.

Hence, knowing how to add superscript or subscript text in Google Docs is very important. Even for trivial cases like formatting dates the right way, adding superscripts is essential.

In this article, we’ll give you a complete step-by-step walkthrough on how to do a superscript in Google Docs, how to do a subscript in Google Docs, as well as how to do a superscript or subscript in Google Sheets.

Table of Contents

What are Subscripts and Superscripts?
How to do a Superscript in Google Docs
How to do a Subscript in Google Docs
How to add Superscripts or Subscripts in Google Sheets
FAQs

What are Superscripts and Subscripts?

Superscripts and subscripts are special text characters that are smaller in size than the normal text in a line or paragraph.

Superscript

Superscripts are positioned a bit higher than the normal text. For example, consider this text: x2 (an exponent). In this example, ‘2’ is a Superscript, as it is placed slightly above the normal character ‘x’.

Superscripts are typically used while denoting exponents, like raising a variable or numerical character to a higher power (for example, x2 or xy). Superscript is also commonly used to denote temperatures in degrees (for example, 25°C).

Cases where superscripts are typically used:

Mathematical formulae: Exponents (eg. x3 + y2 - 23)
Business: Trademark symbol, Copyright symbol (eg. Google DocsTM)
Research/ reports: In-text citations to sources (eg. ...recorded future[2])
Common use-cases:

Ordinal date indicators (eg. 2nd December)
Temperatures in degrees (eg. 27°C)

Subscript

Subscripts are positioned a bit lower than the normal text. For example, consider this text: H2O (also a common chemical denotation meaning ‘water’). In this example, ‘2’ is a Subscript, as it is placed slightly below the normal characters ‘H’ and ‘O’.

Subscripts are generally less used in common day-to-day applications. However, they are widely used in academia. A primary use-case for subscripts is denoting the chemical composition of molecules and other chemical formulae. They’re also used in mathematical formulae, to denote number or variable sequences.

Cases where subscripts are typically used:

Chemistry: Molecular composition formulae (eg. C2H3O2, H20)
Physics: Greek characters as variables (eg. ρ0, Ω0, vrocket)
Mathematics: Number or variable sequences (eg. a0, a1 , a2…an)

How to do a Superscript in Google Docs on Windows and Mac

There are three different methods of adding superscripts in Google Docs. The first, and the easiest and fastest method, is to use the dedicated keyboard shortcuts for your Google Doc superscript. The second is to use the Format option, while the third is to use the special characters library of Google Docs.

Method #1: Keyboard Shortcuts

By using keyboard shortcuts, you’ll be able to easily add a superscript in Google Docs within seconds. They’re also very easy to remember for future reference.

Step 1. Select the text you want as superscript

Step 2. Press ‘Ctrl’ + ‘.’ (period)

Note: Use ‘Command’ + ‘.’ for Mac.

You can also click on anywhere between text and then press ‘Ctrl’ + ‘.’ to start typing in superscript.

The text format will remain in superscript until you turn it off, so to revert back to normal text, just press ‘Ctrl’ + ‘.’ again. (The keyboard shortcut works as a toggle). You can also use the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl’ + ‘\’ to clear all formatting and revert back to normal text. However, note that this option clears ALL formatting, not just superscripts.

Method #2: Format Option

Step 1. Select the text you want to show as superscript

Step 2. Click on ‘Format’ → ‘Text’ → ‘Superscript’

That’s it. The text you enter will now show as superscript in your Google Docs document. To turn the superscript format off, just click on ‘Format’ → ‘Text’ → ‘Superscript’ to toggle it off in the Format menu.

Method #3: Special Characters Library

Alternatively, you can also use Google Docs’ special character library to add pre-defined superscript or subscript text.

Note: The Google Docs special character library lets you add symbols like arrows, as well as different language scripts and emojis to your document.

Step 1. Click on ‘Insert’ → ‘Special characters’

The special characters dialog box opens up

Step 2. In the search field on the right, type ‘superscript’

Google Docs will search for all the superscript characters and display them on the left side pane in the dialog box.

Step 3. Click on the desired superscript symbol to insert into your document

Step 4. Close the dialog box

The symbol you clicked on will automatically appear where you had placed the cursor.

How to do a Subscript in Google Docs on Windows and Mac

Inserting a subscript in Google Docs is identical to the methods explained above, with one simple change. Obviously, you need to select ‘Subscript’ instead of ‘Superscript wherever applicable.