Title Case Converter
Paste a headline and get it back in title case, with the editorial rule applied rather than every word capitalised: small words like of, and and the stay lowercase in the middle of a title and are capitalised when they open or close it. The page opens on a worked example with the title-case result at the top of the list, and the other eleven cases are still there underneath if that is not the one you wanted.
The twenty small words, and what title case does with each
Generated by running the tool's own title-case transform over each word in three positions: alone at the front of a three-word title, in the middle, and at the end. A small word is lowercase in the middle and capitalised at either edge. The example above, 'the lord of the rings and the return of the king', becomes 'The Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King'.
| Small word | First word | In the middle | Last word |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | A | a | A |
| an | An | an | An |
| and | And | and | And |
| as | As | as | As |
| at | At | at | At |
| but | But | but | But |
| by | By | by | By |
| for | For | for | For |
| if | If | if | If |
| in | In | in | In |
| nor | Nor | nor | Nor |
| of | Of | of | Of |
| on | On | on | On |
| or | Or | or | Or |
| per | Per | per | Per |
| the | The | the | The |
| to | To | to | To |
| v | V | v | V |
| via | Via | via | Via |
| vs | Vs | vs | Vs |
Common questions
- Which words are left lowercase in title case?
- Twenty of them: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, if, in, nor, of, on, or, per, the, to, v, via and vs. They stay lowercase only in the middle of the title. The first word and the last word are always capitalised, whatever they are, which is why 'something to live for' becomes 'Something to Live For' with the final for capitalised. The table below prints all twenty in each of the three positions.
- What happens to a word I had already capitalised, like NASA?
- It comes back as Nasa. Title case here lowercases the whole string first and then capitalises by position, which is what makes it work on text you paste in any casing, and it means an acronym you typed in capitals loses them. Fix those by hand after copying, or use Sentence case, which behaves the same way, or leave acronyms out of the field and add them back.
- Does punctuation stop a small word being recognised?
- No. The check strips anything that is not a letter, a digit or an apostrophe before looking the word up, so of, and of. and (of are all recognised as the small word of. A hyphenated word gets its first letter capitalised and nothing else: well-known becomes Well-known, not Well-Known, because the second half is a separate editorial decision the tool will not make for you.
- Is this AP style or Chicago style?
- Neither exactly. It is the common ground between them: a fixed list of short function words kept lowercase in the middle of a title. AP capitalises prepositions of four letters or more, Chicago does not, and both have rules for the second half of a hyphenated compound. Where the two disagree this tool follows the shorter list, so check a headline against your own style guide before it goes out.
- Can I see the other cases at the same time?
- Yes. Every one of the twelve cases is computed from the same text as you type, and on this page the title-case row is simply pulled to the top and marked. Sentence case, camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, CONSTANT_CASE and the rest are in the list underneath with their own Copy buttons.
- Is anything I paste sent anywhere?
- No. Every case is computed in your browser and nothing is transmitted. Your draft is kept on this device so it survives closing the tab, and clearing site data removes it.
Exact, and Unicode-aware: casing follows the Unicode rules rather than ASCII, so accented letters, Greek final sigma and the Turkish dotless i convert correctly. Title case applies English conventions for small words, which is a style choice rather than a standard.