Make your Google Docs PDF look professional

Use the built-in Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles instead of manually bolding and resizing text. Customize the styles once with your preferred font, size, and color, then apply them throughout the document. This creates a clean visual hierarchy and generates a clickable table of contents in the PDF.

Default single spacing feels cramped in PDF form. Set body text to 1.15 or 1.5 line spacing, and add 6-8 points of space after paragraphs instead of using blank lines. This gives the document room to breathe without wasting vertical space.

Insert page numbers, a document title in the header, and your organization name or date in the footer. This framing makes multi-page PDFs easy to navigate and instantly identifiable. Keep header and footer text small and understated so it does not compete with body content.

Pick two or three colors that match your brand or purpose and use them for headings, accents, and links. Avoid the temptation to add color everywhere. Restraint looks more professional than variety. Use the custom color picker in Google Docs to enter exact hex values for consistency.

The Doc editor and the PDF do not always look identical. Export a draft PDF and review it on a different device or screen. Check alignment, image placement, color accuracy, and whether the overall feel matches your intent. Small adjustments at this stage make a big difference.