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How to change case in Excel, Google Sheets, Word, and Google Docs

By Alpha Elite Digital. Published . Updated .

Excel and Google Sheets change case with a formula in another cell. Word and Google Docs change the words you selected. The examples below are the ones Microsoft and Google publish, plus the edits those results still leave you.

If the text is not in one of those files, use the Case Converter. It runs in the browser and does not upload what you paste. It is also the practical sentence-case pass when a spreadsheet has no function for that job.

A formula cell, or a selection

A formula does not rewrite the cell you point at. Microsoft's UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER pages put the source in one cell and the formula in another. Google's samples are UPPER(A2), LOWER(A2), and PROPER(A2). The original stays put until you paste the result back as a value.

Word and Docs change a selection. Highlight the words, then pick a command. Undo immediately if the command hit the wrong range. For the Word command, Microsoft documents Ctrl+Z on Windows and ⌘+Z on Mac.

Excel and Sheets say UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER. Word says UPPERCASE, lowercase, Capitalize Each Word, and Sentence case. PROPER and Capitalize Each Word capitalize short words too. That is not an APA, Chicago, or MLA headline. The edit is Title Case rules. The choice of style is When to use each case.

Excel: UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER

The function names below are the English ones on Microsoft's pages. A copy of Excel in another language may show translated names. Those translations are not listed here. Find the function from what it does, then compare the result to the published rows.

UPPER converts text to uppercase. Microsoft's published rows:

Microsoft's UPPER examples A2 total =UPPER(A2) TOTAL A3 Yield =UPPER(A3) YIELD

LOWER converts letters to lowercase. Microsoft says it does not change characters that are not letters. Their published rows:

Microsoft's LOWER examples A2 E. E. Cummings =LOWER(A2) e. e. cummings A3 Apt. 2B =LOWER(A3) apt. 2b

Digits and periods stay. LOWER is the flat base when a column arrived in capitals.

PROPER capitalizes the first letter, and any letter that follows a character that is not a letter. It lowercases every other letter. Microsoft's published rows:

Microsoft's PROPER examples A2 this is a TITLE =PROPER(A2) This Is A Title A3 2-way street =PROPER(A3) 2-Way Street A4 76BudGet =PROPER(A4) 76Budget

This Is A Title capitalizes Is and A. The hyphen in 2-Way Street is not a letter, so the W is capitalized. 76Budget capitalizes the letter after the digits and lowercases the rest of BudGet.

Fill a column, then watch the apostrophe

Put source text in column A, from A2 down. In B2 enter =PROPER(A2). Microsoft's paste-options page says the fill handle copies a formula into adjacent cells. Drag it down. Column A is unchanged. Column B stays a formula until you paste values.

The published table has no apostrophe. The rule on that page still applies: a letter after a non-letter is capitalized, and every other letter is lowercased. On three ordinary strings that rule produces:

PROPER's rule, applied don't stop now Don'T Stop Now mcdonald's Mcdonald'S o'neil O'Neil

Those lines apply the published rule. They are not a second Microsoft table. The apostrophe is not a letter, so the next letter is capitalized: Don'T, Mcdonald'S. O'Neil looks finished only because the apostrophe sits in the right place. McDonald does not. The c follows a letter, so the result is Mcdonald.

Our Title Case button treats an apostrophe as part of the word. It lowercases first, then capitalizes a letter only when the character before it is not a letter, a digit, or an apostrophe. The same strings, from that button:

Same strings, Title Case on this site don't stop now Don't Stop Now mcdonald's Mcdonald's o'neil O'neil 76BudGet 76budget

Excel's published result for 76BudGet is 76Budget. Our button leaves 76budget, because a digit is not a word break. Decide which one you want before you fill a long product-code column. The apostrophe behavior, including the O'Hare edit, is in Title Case rules.

Replace the formulas with values

A column of =PROPER(A2) still depends on column A. Microsoft's paste options page is how you freeze the results.

On Windows, copy the formula cells, then Home, Paste, Values. Microsoft describes Values as formula results, without formatting or comments. Paste Special (Ctrl+Alt+V) has the same Values choice: the values as displayed, not the formula.

In Excel for the web: Home, the clipboard icon, Paste, Paste Values. That is formula results, without formatting. The page gives no separate Mac path. On the desktop, use Home, Paste, Values, then delete the source column.

None of the three function pages documents a SENTENCE function. For sentence case, use Word or the converter. Microsoft's LOWER example turns E. E. Cummings into e. e. cummings. Our Sentence case button capitalizes the letter after each period, so that string comes back as E. E. Cummings. That is the button's rule for . ! and ?, not a special case for initials.

Google Sheets

Sheets uses the same three English names. The help text is shorter than Excel's, and it does not repeat Excel's rows. Keep the two sources separate.

UPPER converts a string to uppercase. Samples: UPPER("lorem ipsum") and UPPER(A2). Syntax: UPPER(text).

LOWER converts a string to lowercase. Samples: LOWER("LOREM IPSUM") and LOWER(A2). Syntax: LOWER(text).

PROPER capitalizes each word in a string. Samples: PROPER("united states") and PROPER(A2). Syntax: PROPER(text_to_capitalize). The description stops at "capitalizes each word." It does not say the other letters are lowercased, and it does not mention apostrophes or digits.

Do not copy Excel's Don'T into a Sheets column and call it documented. united states is already lowercase, so the sample cannot show what Sheets does to NASA or don't. Run =PROPER(A2) on one real cell and read it before you fill down.

The formula still sits in its own cell. Google's three pages do not document a paste-values command. If the Edit menu has an entry that says it pastes values only, that is the one that replaces formulas with text. If the label is unclear, leave the formula column and copy from it.

Word: Change Case, and Shift+F3

Microsoft's page Change the capitalization or case of text covers Word for Microsoft 365, Word for Mac, and the desktop versions it lists through Word 2016. Select the text first. Then go to Home, then Change case.

Run THE MEETING IS ON FRIDAY IN CHICAGO. through those definitions:

One sentence, from Word's definitions lowercase: the meeting is on friday in chicago. UPPERCASE: THE MEETING IS ON FRIDAY IN CHICAGO. Capitalize Each Word: The Meeting Is On Friday In Chicago. Sentence case: The meeting is on friday in chicago.

Sentence case lowercases Friday and Chicago, so you type those capitals back. Our Sentence case button returns the same line on this input. Our Title Case button returns The Meeting Is On Friday In Chicago.

Shift+F3 only cycles lowercase, UPPERCASE, and Capitalize Each Word. Sentence case and tOGGLE cASE stay on the menu. On Mac the documented shortcut is fn+Shift+F3.

Word for the web does not support changing case. Microsoft says to use the desktop app, or to change the casing yourself. From the browser, the converter is the other path: run the case, paste it back, restore names.

Google Docs: Format, Text, Capitalization

In Google Docs the path is Format, then Text, then Capitalization. It changes the selection, as Word does, rather than writing a formula into the next cell. Select the heading or the paragraph before you open the menu.

A current Docs Editors Help article that lists the items on that menu was not available when this page was written. The Sheets pages above do not describe the menu either, so the submenu labels are not stated here as if Google had published them. Open Capitalization and read the labels in your file. Match each label to the job: small letters, all capitals, or a capital on each word. If Sentence case is absent, use Word's Sentence case command or the converter, then restore names.

A PROPER formula is not a Docs command on any page cited here. Pasting a checked Sheet cell into a Doc pastes the displayed text only.

What you still fix by hand

PROPER, Capitalize Each Word, and our Title Case button capitalize small words. This Is A Title is Microsoft's example, and it is what our button returns for this is a title. A style that lowercases "a" and "is" in the middle still needs that edit. The worked APA line is on the Title Case guide.

iPhone, eBay, and McDonald are not in the functions cited above. PROPER lowercases the other letters, so a mid-word capital does not survive. Fix brands after you paste values, on a sample of rows, before you trust the column.

A shouted paragraph is a different job from a column of names. LOWER, or Word's lowercase command, flattens it. Sentence case restores sentence starts and still drops names. That cleanup, including acronyms that disappear, is Common uppercase mistakes.

Which tool to open

Sources

Excel rows are Microsoft's published examples. The three apostrophe lines apply the PROPER rule and are marked as such. Title Case lines are this site's button. Word is paraphrased from the change-case page. Sheets stays inside the three help pages below.