How the title case rules work
Title case means capitalizing the important words in a headline and leaving minor words lowercase. This tool follows the headline style shared by most major style guides:
- The first and last word are always capitalized.
- Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns are capitalized, including short ones such as "Is", "Be" and "It".
- Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) and short prepositions (at, by, in, of, on, to, up, via, with and similar) stay lowercase in the middle of a title.
- The first word after a colon or dash is capitalized, since it starts a subtitle.
- Each part of a hyphenated word is capitalized, as in "Long-Term Plan".
Each line is treated as a separate title, so you can convert a full list of blog post titles, H2 headings or product names in one go.
Example
a beginner's guide to the stock market: what to know before you invest becomes A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market: What to Know Before You Invest.
Title case or sentence case for SEO titles?
Both are fine for rankings. Title case is traditional for news, blogs and books and stands out in search results. Sentence case feels more conversational and is popular with tech companies and UI copy. The most important thing is to stay consistent across your site. If you prefer sentence case, use the Sentence Case Converter.
Things to check by hand
No automatic tool knows every brand name or acronym. Words like "iPhone", "NASA" or "eBay" are converted like normal words, so review the result and fix any names with special capitalization before you publish.
Frequently asked questions
Which style guide does this follow?
It follows the headline rules common to Chicago, APA and AP: capitalize major words, lowercase articles, conjunctions and short prepositions in the middle of the title. Style guides differ on prepositions of four or more letters; this tool capitalizes those.
Is "is" capitalized in a title?
Yes. "Is" is a verb, and verbs are always capitalized in title case no matter how short they are. The same goes for "Be", "Are" and "Was".
Can I convert many titles at once?
Yes. Put each title on its own line. Every line is capitalized as a separate title.
Why did my acronym become lowercase?
The tool lowercases each word before applying the rules so it can fix text typed in all caps. Retype acronyms such as SEO or USA in capitals after converting.
Last updated