Docs tower · floor

How to strikethrough on Google Docs, and take it off

How to strikethrough on google docs takes one shortcut or three menu clicks, and the reason so many people look it up is that there is no button for it beside Bold and Italic where you would expect one. Both routes are below, and both are Google’s own.

From the menu

Google’s own steps: “Select the text you want to change. Open the Format menu. Select Text. Choose your text format” — and Strikethrough is the fourth entry, under Bold, Italic and Underline.

Format rather than the toolbar is the part people miss. There is no strikethrough button sitting beside the B and the I.

From the keyboard

Google lists it in its shortcuts reference: Alt + Shift + 5.

It is a toggle, so the same keys take it off again — which is also the answer to removing a strikethrough somebody else applied. Select the text, press it again.

The wording varies and the feature does not: strikethrough on Google Docs, strikethrough in Google Docs, cross out text, strike through with a space. It is one command with one keyboard shortcut, and the same command removes it.

What a strikethrough means to the person reading it

It is the only formatting that says something rather than showing something. Bold says look here; italic says this is a title or an emphasis. Struck-through text says: this was here, it is no longer true, and I am not hiding that it was here.

Which is exactly why it is the right tool for a price that has changed, a task that is done, a clause that has been withdrawn — and the wrong tool for a mistake you simply want gone. If the reader does not need to know the old version existed, delete it. If they do, strike it.

And a caution for shared documents. Struck-through text is still text. It is copied when somebody copies the paragraph, it is found by search, and it is read aloud by a screen reader unless the reader’s software is set to skip it. A deleted clause left visible is a deleted clause that still travels.

The neighbours, from the same reference

Ctrl + b
Bold.
Ctrl + i
Italicize.
Ctrl + u
Underline.
Alt + Shift + 5
Strikethrough — the odd one out, and the reason it is hard to guess.
Ctrl + \
Clear text formatting. The fastest way out of a paragraph that has collected several formats by accident.

If the shortcut does nothing, the usual cause is the number row. Google’s shortcut uses the 5 above the letters, not the 5 on a numeric keypad, and on some keyboard layouts the combination is taken by something else. The menu route always works, which is why it is worth knowing even if you prefer shortcuts.

Removing one that somebody else added is the same two actions. Select the struck text and press the shortcut, or go back through Format › Text and choose Strikethrough again. There is no separate remove command, because it was never a separate state — it is a switch.

One place it behaves differently from what people expect. Strikethrough is character formatting, so it belongs to the letters rather than to the paragraph. Copy the text into another document and the line comes with it; retype the same words and it does not. That is convenient when you are moving a withdrawn clause into an archive, and a nuisance when you are copying a price list and would rather the old prices arrived clean — in which case Ctrl + \ clears the formatting after the paste.

The menu route, the keyboard shortcut and the neighbouring shortcuts are quoted from Google’s own Docs Editors documentation, read on 22 August 2026 and listed below. The reading of what a strikethrough communicates, and the caution about shared documents, are ours.

Where to start

Four ways in.

“Cross out this line.”
One shortcut — two routes
“There is no button for it.”
There is not. It is under Format — two routes
“Take the line off again.”
The same command — removing it
“Should this be struck or deleted?”
They say different things — what it communicates

Two routes

A menu path and a shortcut, both from Google. Neither of them is a button on the toolbar, which is why the question gets asked.

Margins in Google DocsWhere the setting moved, and the one that changes the whole document rather than the page.Open this floor → Graphs in Google SheetsThe chart can stay linked to the data — and Google warns it is then visible to people who cannot open the sheet.Open this floor → Free alternatives to WordWhat each one does with a file somebody else has to open afterwards.Open this floor →

What it communicates

The only formatting that makes a claim rather than an emphasis. Struck text says this was here and is no longer true.

Track changesWho edited what, and the setting that decides whether it can be turned off.Open this floor → Watermarks in WordFour clicks — and the thing the four clicks do not tell you: a watermark labels a document, it does not protect it.Open this floor → Signatures in WordThree things go by that name and they prove three different amounts.Open this floor →

Removing it

There is no separate command, because it was never a separate state. The switch goes both ways.

Columns in WordText flows from one column into the next — which decides whether you want columns at all.Open this floor → Double spacingThe setting that applies to a paragraph and the one that applies to everything.Open this floor → Deleting a page in WordThe invisible mark that is usually the reason a blank page will not go away.Open this floor →

In a shared document

Struck text is still text: copied, searched and read aloud. A withdrawn clause left visible still travels.

Fillable forms in WordThe last step is the one that matters: without it, whoever fills the form in can also rewrite it.Open this floor →
Customer data and the lawWhat you are holding about other people, and what it obliges you to do.Being built
Word to PDFThe two export options and what each one is actually for.Open this floor →

What this tower will not do

It will not send you looking for a toolbar button. There is not one, and that is the whole reason this is a question.

It will not treat striking and deleting as interchangeable. One of them tells the reader something the other hides.

And it will not suggest an add-on for something that is one keyboard shortcut. What holds instead is simple: the menu route and the keyboard shortcuts are quoted from Google’s own Docs Editors documentation, with the date each page was read.

Where this page got its facts

  1. Google Docs Editors Help — Change how paragraphs and fonts look, including the Format › Text route and the Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough options — support.google.com, read 22 August 2026.
  2. Google Docs Editors Help — Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs, including Strikethrough as Alt + Shift + 5 and the neighbouring text formatting shortcuts — support.google.com, read 22 August 2026.

Written by Alberto Gulotta

Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.

Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.

Written on 22 August 2026.

Independence and limits

No affiliate links and no paid placements anywhere on this site. Nobody pays to appear here, and no company has seen this page before you did.

This is general information, not professional advice. Where a page touches money, health, safety or the law, it names its source and the date it was read — and your situation may still differ. See the privacy page and the cookie policy.