Tabs are being added to Google Docs to make it easier to organize and find information in longer documents. The feature was originally announced in April and is now gradually rolling out to all Google Workspace users and personal Google Accounts. However, it may take a few weeks to become available.
“You can now use tabs to design and create content so you can quickly find what you’re looking for and stay on task,” Google announced in its latest Workspace update. “Plus, readers can easily navigate through your document and focus on the sections that matter most to them.”
Tabs can be accessed in the Gdocs desktop web editor by selecting the bullet point icon in the top left corner of the document screen. The icon that was previously labeled “Show document outline” when hovered over now displays “Show tabs and outlines,” giving users the ability to add and manage multiple tabs, including subtabs to create customizable categories create. For example, Google suggests that users could create a “Budget” tab that contains sub-tabs for specific expenses like food and travel.
The feature supports adding up to three levels of nested subtabs, which can be created by either selecting “Add Subtab” from the tab options menu or dragging one tab into another to automatically convert it into a subtab. Users can give each tab and sub-tab a unique label and emoji to quickly identify them. The tab navigation menu opens by default for documents that contain two or more tabs, and users can share links to specific tabs by clicking the three-dot menu next to each tab.
Tab editing features such as renaming, duplicating, or deleting tabs are only available to users who have Editor access to the document. Otherwise, tabs can be viewed and navigated in suggestion mode, but cannot be customized.