How to use
- Paste your text into the box. It can be a single heading or many lines.
- Press the button to capitalize every word.
- Read the output, paying attention to brand names, acronyms and surnames such as McDonald or O’Neil.
- Fix any special cases manually, then copy the result.
- For headline style where small words like "to" and "of" stay lowercase, edit those few words after converting.
- If you only want the first word of each sentence capitalized, use Capitalize Sentences instead.
Formula / how it works
Two steps run on your text:
- Lowercase everything. The whole input is converted with JavaScript's toLowerCase(), which is Unicode-aware, so É becomes é and DON'T becomes don't.
- Uppercase each word start. A letter is uppercased when it is the first character of the text or follows a character that is not a letter, digit or apostrophe. In regular-expression form the rule is (^|[^\p{L}\p{N}'’])(\p{L}) with the u flag.
What counts as a word boundary. Spaces, hyphens, slashes, brackets and quotes all start a new word, so "mary-jane" becomes "Mary-Jane" and "(draft)" becomes "(Draft)". Digits do not, so "3rd" stays "3rd" rather than "3Rd".
Apostrophes are not boundaries. A naive \b\w pattern would turn "don't" into "Don'T" and "it's" into "It'S". This tool treats both the straight apostrophe (') and the curly one (’) as part of the word. The trade-off is that Irish and Italian surnames stay lowercase after the apostrophe: "o’neil" becomes "O’neil", not "O’Neil", and "d'angelo" becomes "D'angelo". Fix these by hand.
Accented and non-Latin letters work. Because the pattern uses the Unicode letter class \p{L}, "café élan" becomes "Café Élan" and Greek or Cyrillic words are capitalized correctly. Scripts without upper and lower case, such as Urdu, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese, pass through unchanged.
Why mixed-case words are flattened. Lowercasing first is what lets the tool fix ALL-CAPS input, but it also destroys deliberate mixed case: iPhone becomes Iphone, McDonald becomes Mcdonald, YouTube becomes Youtube and NASA becomes Nasa. There is no reliable way to know which mixed case is intentional without a dictionary, so review brand names and acronyms afterwards.
Capitalize Words versus title case. Style guides (APA, Chicago, AP) define title case with exceptions: articles (a, an, the), short conjunctions (and, but, or) and short prepositions (in, on, to, of) stay lowercase unless they start the title. This tool capitalizes every word, which some call "start case". "The Don't Panic Guide To Café Life" in Chicago style would be "The Don't Panic Guide to Café Life".
Where start case is the right choice. Person and place names in a spreadsheet, product names in an online store, labels on buttons and menus, and file or folder names usually want every word capitalized, so no manual fixes are needed there beyond special surnames and brands.
Turkish dotted and dotless i. The browser's default lowercase and uppercase rules are not locale-specific, so Turkish "İstanbul" written in capitals may not round-trip perfectly. For Turkish text, check the letter i in the output.
Worked examples
All-caps word with an apostrophe
Inputs: the DON'T panic guide to café life
Paste the heading and press the button. The text is lowercased, then the first letter after each space is uppercased. The apostrophe in don't is not a boundary, so the t stays lowercase; é is a letter, so café becomes Café.
Result: The Don't Panic Guide To Café Life
A Chicago-style title would keep "to" lowercase.
Brand names get flattened
Inputs: iPhone repair in new york
Paste and convert. Lowercasing turns iPhone into iphone before the word starts are uppercased, so the brand loses its styling.
Result: Iphone Repair In New York
Change Iphone back to iPhone by hand.
Hyphenated name and curly apostrophe
Inputs: mary-jane o’neil
Paste and convert. The hyphen is a word boundary, so both halves of Mary-Jane are capitalized. The curly apostrophe is part of the word, so the n in O’neil stays lowercase.
Result: Mary-Jane O’neil
Edit to O’Neil manually.
Use cases
- Cleaning a customer or student name list typed in mixed case.
- Formatting product titles imported from a supplier spreadsheet.
- Turning ALL-CAPS headings into readable start case.
- Preparing labels for buttons, menus and file names.
- Normalising city and street names before a mail merge.
Tips & limitations
- Check brands like iPhone, eBay and YouTube after converting.
- Fix O’Neil, McDonald and similar surnames by hand.
- Lowercase small words afterwards if you need strict title case.
- Acronyms such as NASA and PKR become Nasa and Pkr; restore them.
- Run the tool on one column at a time in spreadsheets to avoid touching codes or IDs.
FAQ
Why does it change NASA to Nasa?
The tool lowercases the whole text first so that ALL-CAPS input can be fixed. That also lowercases acronyms, so restore them afterwards.
Does it handle don't and it's correctly?
Yes. Apostrophes are treated as part of the word, so you get Don't and It's, not Don'T and It'S.
Is this the same as title case?
Not exactly. Title case style guides leave short words like "of", "to" and "and" lowercase. This tool capitalizes every word.
Does it work with accented letters?
Yes. Letters such as é, ñ and ö are capitalized correctly because the rule uses Unicode letter classes.
What about Urdu or Arabic text?
Those scripts have no capital letters, so the text is returned unchanged apart from any Latin words mixed in.
Why is O’Neil shown as O’neil?
The apostrophe is not treated as a word boundary, which is right for don’t but wrong for some surnames. Fix those manually.
Are numbers affected?
No. A letter after a digit is not capitalized, so 3rd and 21st stay as typed.
Runs entirely in your browser; your text is not uploaded. Counts and scores are heuristics, so review the output before you publish it.