
Have you ever been working on a document in Google Docs and needed to add a degree symbol? If so, you know that it can be a bit of a pain especially when you’re working on documents with temperature, angles, and geographic coordinates.
The degree symbol isn’t one of the standard characters on most keyboards, so you have to go out of your way to find it and this can be quite frustrating especially when you haven’t had to use the symbol in a while.
In this article, we will show you how to add the degree symbol in Google Docs using three different methods. We will also provide some tips on how to use the degree symbol correctly.
Quick Answer:
To add the degree symbol to Google Docs, follow these steps.
- Open your document in Google Docs.
- Go to the Docs menu bar.
- Select “Insert” > “Special characters“.
- Type in “degree” in the search box.
- Select the correct degree symbol from the search results.
How To Add Degree Symbol In Google Docs (3 Methods)
To add the degree symbol in Google Docs, you can use a couple of methods. The first method is by using the Google Docs Special Characters tool which allows users to insert various characters which are not available on the keyboard to their documents on the platform.
Another method you can use to insert the degree symbol into your document in Google Docs is by using a special keyboard shortcut depending on your operating system. Also, you can add the degree sign to your document by simply copying it from a webpage or another document ad pasting it into the document.
Below, we discuss each method for adding the degree symbol to your Google Document detail. All methods will work flawlessly!
Method 1: Using the Google Docs Special Characters tool.
Here is how to add the degree symbol to your document by using the Google Docs Special Characters tool.
Step 1: Sign into your account and open your document.
First, go to the Google Docs dashboard and sign into your Google account if you haven’t signed in already.
After signing in, you should see a list of all your Google documents on the Google Docs dashboard. Select the document you want to add the degree symbol to and it should open up in a new Google Docs tab.
If you already have the document opened up on your web browser, you can skip this step.
Next, go to the Google Docs menu bar, click “Insert” and then select “Special characters” from the menu items to open up the Google Docs Special Characters tool.

Step 3: Search for the “degree” symbol and insert it into your document.
Now, you should see the Special Characters tool dialog box opened up in the middle of your document with a ton of characters that can be inserted into your document.
Since we only want to insert the degree symbol, we will be ignoring the remaining characters.
To find the degree symbol, go to the search box and type in “degree” then wait for it to bring up the search results in the LHS.
In the search results, go ahead and click the correct degree symbol to insert it into your document. It is usually the 4th character on the first row of the search results.

Once you click on the degree symbol, it will be inserted next to the text where your text cursor last was before opening the tool.
Also, if you want to insert the Celsius or Fahrenheit symbols, you can select them directly there (characters 1 & 2 on the first row) instead of writing “C” or “F” and inserting the degree symbol before the letter.
Step 4: Close the tool.
Finally, when you’re done with inserting the symbol into your document, click on the “X” sign in the top right corner of the dialog to close the tool.

And that’s how you can add the degree symbol to your document easily by utilizing the Google Docs special characters tool.
Method 2: Using Keyboard Shortcuts.
As we mentioned earlier, another (quicker) way to insert the degree symbol into your document in Google Docs is by using keyboard shortcuts but the shortcut to use will depend on the operating system your device is currently running on.
If you use Windows, the keyboard shortcut to insert the degree symbol on Google Docs is Alt + 0 1 7 6. First place your cursor where you want to add the symbol before using the shortcut.
For users on macOS, the keyboard shortcut to insert the degree symbol in Google Docs on Mac is Option + Shift + 8.
On Linux and ChromeOS, you can get the degree sign on Google Docs by using a key combination of Alt + Shift + 0 once or twice depending on the layout your keyboard is set to.
After using any of the above key combinations (depending on your operating system), the degree symbol will be inserted to the current location of your text cursor on the document.
Method 3: Copying and pasting from an external source.
The last method you can use to add the degree symbol to your documents in Google Docs is simply copying from an external source and pasting it into your document (without formatting – very important!).
You can do this by either copying the degree symbol from a web page or another document and then paste into the document where you intend to use it.
To use this method, simply to Google then type in “degree symbol” into the search box, and hit the Search icon.
Now select the first result on the search results.
Alternatively, can also just skip the Googling part and visit the website directly using this link – https://www.degreesymbol.net/.
On the website, click on the giant “Copy” button to copy the degree symbol to your device clipboard.

Finally, go back to the Google Docs tab which has your document opened then place your cursor where you want to insert the symbol then right-click and select “Paste without formatting” from the options.

Alternatively, you can use the key combination of Ctrl + Shift + V (or Command + Shift + V on macOS) to paste without formatting.
And that’s it. After pasting, you should now see the degree symbol inserted at the place where your text cursor was before pasting.

Wrapping Up
In this article, we outlined 3 methods that you can use to add the degree symbol to your document on Google Docs.
These methods include using the Google Docs special characters tool, utilizing keyboard shortcuts depending on your OS, and simply copying the degree symbol from an external source and pasting it into your document (without formatting).
Regardless of what you intend to achieve with the symbol and the operating system you use to access Google Docs, any of these above-listed methods will work for inserting the degree symbol into your Google documents.