About the Title Case Converter
A title case converter capitalizes the important words of a headline and keeps short words like a, of and the in lowercase. Paste one title, or a list with one title per line, and each line comes back ready for a blog post, a YouTube video or a paper.
Doing it by hand is fiddly. Short verbs like Is take a capital, the word after a colon starts fresh, and long-term needs a capital on both parts. The converter handles those cases, keeps acronyms and brand names such as NASA and iPhone as you typed them, and repairs titles that arrive in ALL CAPS.
- Paste your title into Text to Convert to Title Case. For a batch, put each title on its own line, for example a list of blog post ideas or chapter names.
- The converted version appears under Title Case Text about 0.3 seconds after you stop typing. There's no convert button to press.
- Read the result once. Look for names with unusual capitals, for longer prepositions such as
withorfromif you follow Chicago or MLA, and for acronyms if you pasted text in capitals. - Click Copy at the top of the result box and paste the titles into your editor, CMS or spreadsheet.
Inputa step-by-step guide to long-term investing: what to know before you startOutputA Step-by-Step Guide to Long-Term Investing: What to Know Before You Startby stays lowercase inside Step-by-Step because it's a small word. What gets a capital because it opens the subtitle after the colon.
Inputhow to use NASA data in an iPhone app
the best places to eat in mexico city
why we moved from REST to GraphQLOutputHow to Use NASA Data in an iPhone App
The Best Places to Eat in Mexico City
Why We Moved From REST to GraphQLNASA, iPhone, REST and GraphQL have capitals after the first letter, so they're left alone. From is capitalized because it has four letters, as in AP and APA. Chicago would write from.
InputHOW TO WRITE A GOOD HEADLINEOutputHow to Write a Good HeadlineWhen the whole input is in capitals, every word is treated as ordinary text, acronyms too. HOW TO USE NASA DATA becomes How to Use Nasa Data, so fix acronyms after converting.
Which words get a capital
The converter follows one fixed set of rules, close to AP and APA style:
- The first and the last word always get a capital, whatever they are:
Where Are You From. - These words stay lowercase in the middle of a title: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, en, for, if, in, nor, of, on, or, per, the, to, v, vs and via.
- After a colon, full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, the next word is capitalized as if it started a new title:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. - Every other word gets a capital first letter. That includes short verbs (
What Is the Best Way to Learn?) and short words that aren't on the list, such as off, up and out:Why You Should Set Up a Backup Plan. - In a hyphenated word, each part gets a capital except small words:
Self-Report Measures in a Follow-Up Study,Step-by-Step. - Words with a capital after the first letter (
iPhone,JavaScript,NASA) are kept as typed, unless the whole input is in capitals. - The small-word list is English, so in other languages every word gets a capital:
über die brückebecomesÜber Die Brücke. Spanish and French titles normally capitalize only the first word and names, and German capitalizes the first word and every noun, so fix those by hand.
AP, APA, Chicago and MLA side by side
Every major style guide capitalizes the first and last word plus nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and lowercases a, an and the. They disagree about prepositions and conjunctions:
- AP Stylebook (news, many blogs): capitalize words of four letters or more, and lowercase articles, conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer. AP uses title case for the names of books, films and songs, but sentence case for news headlines.
- APA 7th edition (psychology, education, social sciences): the same four-letter rule, and both parts of a hyphenated major word get a capital (
Self-Report). Paper titles and headings use title case, and titles in the reference list use sentence case. - Chicago Manual of Style (books, history): lowercase every preposition however long (
with,about,between), plus and, but, for, or, nor, to and as. - MLA Handbook (literature, humanities): lowercase articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions and the
toin infinitives. - So one title has two correct forms:
Gone With the Windin AP and APA,Gone with the Windin Chicago and MLA. The converter gives the first. For Chicago or MLA, lowercase long prepositions likewith,fromandaboutyourself.
Title case or sentence case?
Sentence case capitalizes only the first word and names, like an ordinary sentence: How to write a good headline. Title case looks more formal and stands out in a list of links. Neither one helps search rankings, so pick one style for a site and use it everywhere.
Habits differ by country and publisher. American magazines and blogs often use title case, while the BBC, The Guardian and Wikipedia use sentence case for headlines and headings. In software docs, the Microsoft and Google style guides both ask for sentence case.
For sentence case, use the Sentence case button in the Lowercase Converter, then put the capitals back on names.
Why built-in functions get title case wrong
Most languages and spreadsheets ship a function that capitalizes every word. None of them know about small words, and Python's str.title() also capitalizes the letter after an apostrophe. A short word list gets you most of the way, as the JavaScript tab shows:
const SMALL = new Set("a an and as at but by for if in nor of on or the to vs via".split(" "));
function titleCase(s) {
const words = s.toLowerCase().split(" ");
return words
.map((w, i) =>
i > 0 && i < words.length - 1 && SMALL.has(w) ? w : w.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + w.slice(1)
)
.join(" ");
}
titleCase("gone with the wind"); // 'Gone With the Wind'
titleCase("THE LORD OF THE RINGS"); // 'The Lord of the Rings'"gone with the wind".title() # 'Gone With The Wind'
"they're bill's friends".title() # "They'Re Bill'S Friends"
import string
string.capwords("they're bill's friends") # "They're Bill's Friends"ucwords("gone with the wind"); // "Gone With The Wind"
ucwords(strtolower("HOW TO WRITE A GOOD HEADLINE")); // "How To Write A Good Headline"=PROPER("gone with the wind") → Gone With The WindWhat is title case?
Title case is a capitalization style for titles and headlines. The main words start with a capital letter, and short words such as a, of and the stay lowercase unless they come first or last, as in A Tale of Two Cities.
Which words should not be capitalized in a title?
Articles (a, an, the), short conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for) and short prepositions (at, by, in, of, on, to), unless one of them is the first or last word. Chicago and MLA also lowercase longer prepositions like with, from and between.
Is "the" capitalized in a title?
Only when it's the first word of the title or of a subtitle after a colon. In the middle it stays lowercase: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Should "is" be capitalized in a title?
Yes. Is, are, be and was are verbs, and every major style guide capitalizes verbs, however short they are.
Do both parts of a hyphenated word get a capital?
In APA and Chicago, usually yes: Long-Term, Self-Report. Small words inside the compound stay lowercase, as in Step-by-Step. The style guides differ on a few details, so check yours if you follow one strictly.
Is title case the same as capitalizing every word?
No. Capitalizing every word gives Gone With The Wind, which is what Excel's PROPER() and PHP's ucwords() produce. Title case keeps the small words lowercase: Gone With the Wind.
How long should a title be?
For a page's title tag, about 50 to 60 characters, so Google doesn't cut it off. The Word Counter shows the count and flags a title over 60, and the Meta Tags Generator turns it into the HTML tags.