Joe Maring / Android authority
Notes applications are among the most fundamental but most useful applications of our phones today. Although there are dozens to choose from the Google Play Store, my choice of choice notes is Google Keep – and it was much more than a decade. I have been using Google Keep since its launch in 2013, and even if I tried the Google Keep alternatives over the years, I have always returned to the Google notes service.
Google Keep has not changed much over the years, and that explains why I like it. The layout of post-it is charming, having it attached to my Google account is practical, and I largely prefer its resolutely simplistic interface compared to something like Evernote. But when Google Keep obtains new features, they are generally significant and are worth waiting.
Such a functionality that Google added at the end of 2023 was the formatting of the text. Google Keep did not take care of the formatting of the text of any kind, but with this update of the Android application, which ultimately changed. The only problem is that Google implemented it in a half -cooked way that it defies all logical and reason. Let me explain.
Do you still use Google Keep?
11 votes
Keep text formatting is great … when you can use it
Joe Maring / Android authority
The way Google has added text formatting to keep the Android application works exactly as you expect. When you are in a note, you press the “A” button underlined to display the formatting menu – offering you options for two, daring, italics and highlighting.
This is not the most exhaustive list, but it is well integrated with the application and does the work. I often have long notes when I note ideas for an article, so it is incredibly useful to break my thoughts with headers or highlight certain things with daring or italic text.
However, there is a very key word here. All of this works very well in Keep “Android App”, in particular. Indeed, text formatting does not work on the Keep iOS application or on the office website. Seriously.
Joe Maring / Android authority
Google Keep iOS App (left) and Google Keep Android App
And it is not only that the formatting tools of the text do not exist (which would always be ridiculous). All the formatting changes you have made in the Android Keep application are not reflected in the iOS application or the office site. So, if you have a note with headers, fat text, etc., nothing appears in the iOS or Desktop versions of Keep. The whole text is still there, so it’s not that you lose information, but any formatting is eliminated once you have visualized a note outside the Android application.
Even more perplexed is that the formatting of the text for your notes appears well in the Keep Wear OS application. But formatting for iOS or office? Well, it’s just a step too far.
It shouldn’t be a problem
Joe Maring / Android authority
So many notes without formatting of text to find.
Is this a revolutionary problem? No. If I need to access my notes to maintain my iPhone or my computer, I can always display them and modify them without problem. It is not that the lack of text formatting on these platforms makes you unusable, but that there is no conceivable reason so that they do not have it.
As I mentioned at the top, the formatting of the text was added to the Android application of Google Keep in 2023 – September of the same year, to be exact. This means that Google was 18 months old to add formatting to keep iOS and office counterparts. So why isn’t it? It is not an integration of AI that is too complicated or anything. All we are talking about is to make the text different – something Microsoft Word has been doing since the early 80s.
Joe Maring / Android authority
I recognize that Google is a big business with a lot of different pots on the stove. I am also fully aware that it is much more interested in advancing your tools on AI than spending time worrying about its silly application Little Notes. But in a world where Google Gemini can remember small personal details on me or to settle on how to solve a plumbing problem, it is a little absurd that Google Keep does not take care of something as basic as the text format on all its applications.
Will it ever be repaired? I don’t know. Part of me thinks that it is such a simple change that it must happen sooner or later. On the other hand, if this has not yet happened, it is difficult to see Google suddenly get a change of heart and decide to return the switch. However, I can dream.
