(I’m skipping an opening paragraph here where I whine about how Google Docs is pretty much Microsoft Word 6.0 as a web app and it’s probably the worst tool you could pick for products collaboration work in 2021).

Step 1: Change your defaults

Make sure you’re logged into the google account that you want to save styles to, then open and make a copy of this document. In the copied document, head to Format > Paragraph Styles > Options > Save as my default styles

Then, in pre-existing docs, invoke Use my default styles to load them. If someone used a lot of custom formatting that won’t go away, you can select everything and use Format > Clear Formatting.

Step 2: Install and Configure Stylus Chrome Extension

Install the Stylus extension (or another similar Custom CSS extension).

When Google Docs is open, click the [S] icon in your toolbar and click on the docs part of the Write style for link.

In the window that opens, type

@import ‘https://cemre.s3.amazonaws.com/g-docs-prettify.css’;

(Medium tries to make the quotes fancy which breaks the code. Replace them with regular single quotes).

It should look like this.

Click Save.

In Google Docs, make sure View > Print Layout is unchecked.

That’s it! You will no longer see the page metaphor (no background color, shadow, page dividers) and rulers will only show up when you hover on them.