The Title Case rules this tool applies
- The first and last words are always capitalized.
- Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) and short prepositions (as, at, by, in, of, on, per, to, up, via, vs) stay lowercase in the middle of a title.
- Every other word gets a capital first letter and lowercase after it. That includes verbs such as Is and Are, pronouns such as It, and prepositions of four or more letters such as With, From and About.
- The first word after a colon or a dash (—) is capitalized. You can turn this off.
- Acronyms typed in capitals (NASA) and words with a capital inside (iPhone) are kept as typed. If the whole title is in capitals, it is treated as Caps Lock text and rewritten.
- Each part of a hyphenated word follows the same rules, as in Step-by-Step.
- URLs and e-mail addresses are left alone, and each line is converted separately.
Examples
| Input | Title Case result |
|---|---|
| the lord of the rings: the return of the king | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |
| HOW TO WRITE A GOOD HEADLINE | How to Write a Good Headline |
| a beginner guide to NASA missions | A Beginner Guide to NASA Missions |
| state-of-the-art tools for step-by-step learning | State-of-the-Art Tools for Step-by-Step Learning |
Style guides differ
There is no single correct way to capitalize an English title. AP and APA capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters (With, From, About), while Chicago style (18th edition, 2024) lowercases prepositions of four letters or fewer and capitalizes longer ones (About, Between). Because this tool only lowercases the short words listed above, its output is closest to AP and APA, though it does not apply every rule of any style guide. For Chicago style, lowercase four-letter prepositions such as with, from and into by hand. For papers and publications, follow the style your publisher or school asks for.
Title Case vs Sentence case
Title Case capitalizes every major word and is common for books, films and article headlines. Sentence case capitalizes only the first word and proper nouns, like a normal sentence. For UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case and other styles, use the case converter.