Capitalize First Letter of Each Word

How to use it

1. Paste or type your text in the box, or press Open file to load a plain-text file. Example fills in a sample.
2. Choose the options. Both are ticked by default, which suits most text.
3. The result updates as you type. Press Copy to copy it or Download .txt to save it.
4. To continue working on the result, press Use as input, or send it to title case, sentence case or lowercase from the Continue with this text links.

Spaces, tabs, empty lines and line breaks are kept exactly as they are, so a list of names stays one name per line.

The two options

Here is the same sentence with each combination:

Untick Lowercase the other letters first when your text already has correct capitals that the tool would otherwise lowercase, such as acronyms that the shouting rule below would convert: the IBM NEWS desk becomes The IBM NEWS Desk with it unticked, but The Ibm News Desk with it ticked.

How the tool decides what to capitalize

A word is anything between spaces, tabs or line breaks. In each word the tool capitalizes:

• The first letter, skipping any punctuation in front of it: (hello) becomes (Hello) and "world" becomes "World".
• The first letter after a hyphen or a slash: well-known becomes Well-Known, x-ray becomes X-Ray and and/or becomes And/Or.

It does not start a new capital after an apostrophe, a period or an underscore. don't becomes Don't, rock'n'roll becomes Rock'n'roll and ph.d. becomes Ph.d.. The same rule means o'brien becomes O'brien, so names typed in lowercase need their inner capital added by hand. Names already written O'Brien, MacDonald or DeVito are kept when Keep acronyms and brand names is ticked.

Accented letters work like any other letter: élan über ñandú becomes Élan Über Ñandú. Emoji and symbols are left alone, and the letter after them is capitalized: 🙂smile becomes 🙂Smile.

A word (or the part after a hyphen or slash) that starts with a digit is left as it is: 3rd avenue becomes 3rd Avenue, the 1990s becomes The 1990s and over-40s becomes Over-40s.

How acronyms and brand names are kept

With Keep acronyms and brand names ticked, a word is left exactly as written when it is:

• An acronym of two or more capitals, optionally with a plural s: NASA, BBC, PDFs, URLs. Capitals mixed with digits count too: Q3, B2B, 4K.
• A dotted abbreviation in capitals: U.S., U.K..
• A mixed-case name: a lowercase letter followed by a capital (iPhone, eBay) or a capital inside the word (YouTube, McDonald, O'Brien).
• A hyphenated word built from these: USB-C, DVD-ROM.
• An email address or link: anything with @, or starting with http://, https:// or www..

A possessive 's does not get in the way: McDonald's, the iPad's screen and the CEO's office become McDonald's, The iPad's Screen and The CEO's Office.

Two rules stop the tool from keeping text that is just typed in capitals:

• If the whole text has no lowercase letters, nothing is kept, because every word would look like an acronym. NASA on its own becomes Nasa.
• A run of all-caps words counts as shouting and is converted when one of the words has 5 or more letters, when 3 or more of them stand together, or when 2 stand together and one has 4 or more letters. THIS SENTENCE WAS TYPED WITH CAPS LOCK ON! becomes This Sentence Was Typed With Caps Lock On! and we said STOP NOW to them becomes We Said Stop Now To Them. A comma, semicolon or colon splits a run, so a list such as the PDF, DOCX, XLSX files stays The PDF, DOCX, XLSX Files.

Two short acronyms side by side are kept: the IBM AI team becomes The IBM AI Team. Longer runs are still converted, so the FBI CIA NSA files becomes The Fbi Cia Nsa Files and the IBM NEWS desk becomes The Ibm News Desk. To keep such a run, untick Lowercase the other letters first; the shouting rule only applies to letters the tool lowercases.

Worked examples

All results below come from the tool with both options ticked.

The last row shows the shouting rule: BOARD stands alone after lowercase words, so it is treated as an acronym. A list of names exported in mixed case is fixed line by line:

JANE DOE
john smith
MARY ANN LEE

becomes

Jane Doe
John Smith
Mary Ann Lee

Capitalize each word vs title case and sentence case

Capitalizing every word is a mechanical rule. Title case follows a style guide and keeps short words lowercase in the middle of a title. Sentence case capitalizes only the first word of each sentence (and proper nouns, which you add by hand).

Use capitalize each word for names, addresses, product lists, spreadsheet columns and tags, where every word should start with a capital. Use the title case converter for headlines, book titles and headings, and read title case vs sentence case to choose a style for headings.

Doing the same in Word and Excel

• Microsoft Word: select the text, then go to Home > Change case > Capitalize Each Word, or press Shift+F3 until that case appears. More shortcuts are in our keyboard shortcuts guide.
• Excel: =PROPER(A2) capitalizes the first letter after any character that is not a letter and lowercases the rest. Microsoft’s own examples include this is a TITLE → This Is A Title and 76BudGet → 76Budget. Because an apostrophe is not a letter, PROPER also capitalizes the letter after it, so don't becomes Don'T, and it lowercases acronyms such as NASA.

This tool differs from PROPER in three ways: it does not capitalize after apostrophes, it keeps acronyms and brand names, and it leaves capitals alone when you untick the lowercase option. To clean a column, paste it here, convert, and paste the result back; each cell stays on its own line.

Questions