Title Case Converter
Free online title case converter. Capitalize titles following APA, Chicago Manual of Style, AP, and Simple style guides. Handles hyphenated words, acronyms, and words after colons correctly. Perfect for blog titles, headlines, academic papers, and email subjects.
How to Use
Enter the title, heading, or text you want to properly capitalize in the input box above.
Select APA, Chicago, AP, or Simple style. Chicago is recommended for most blog posts and general content.
Your title is instantly formatted with correct capitalization following the rules of the selected style guide.
Click "Copy" to copy the properly capitalized title to your clipboard, ready to paste into your document or CMS.
What Is Title Case?
Title case is a capitalization style where the first letter of major words in a title or heading is capitalized, while minor words like articles, short prepositions, and conjunctions are kept lowercase. For example: "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog" — "over" and "the" are lowercase because they are minor words.
The Four Style Guides Explained
Different writing contexts follow different title case rules. This tool supports all four major style guides:
- Chicago Manual of Style — The most widely used guide for general content. Keeps a specific list of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions lowercase (a, an, the, and, but, or, for, nor, in, on, at, to, by, of, as, is, it, so, up, yet) unless they are the first or last word.
- APA Style — Used in academic psychology and social science papers. Keeps words of three or fewer letters lowercase (with exceptions for the first and last word).
- AP Style — Used in journalism and news writing. Capitalizes words of four or more letters; keeps two-letter words and under lowercase.
- Simple — Capitalizes every word without exception. Best for decorative or informal use.
Common Title Case Mistakes
The most common mistake is capitalizing every word, including minor words like "the", "and", "of", "in". Another common error is not capitalizing after a colon — most style guides require the word following a colon to be capitalized. This tool handles both correctly.
Acronyms and Hyphenated Words
Acronyms like "USA", "NASA", and "HTML" are automatically preserved in all-caps — they won't be incorrectly converted to "Usa" or "Nasa". Hyphenated words like "self-driving" are converted to "Self-Driving" with both segments capitalized, as most style guides require.
Where Title Case Is Used
Proper title case is essential for blog post titles, article headings, book and movie titles, academic paper titles, email subject lines, SEO meta titles, and social media posts. Using correct capitalization improves readability, looks professional, and for SEO purposes, properly formatted titles perform better in search results.
Frequently Asked Questions
Title case is a capitalization style where the first letter of major words is capitalized. Minor words like "the", "and", "of", and "in" are typically kept lowercase unless they appear as the first or last word of the title.
APA keeps words of three or fewer letters lowercase. Chicago Manual of Style lowercases a specific list of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions (like "a", "an", "the", "and", "of", "in", "is", "it"). AP style capitalizes words of four or more letters. All three always capitalize the first and last word regardless.
For blog posts and general content, Chicago style is the most commonly recommended. Academic papers in psychology or social sciences use APA. Journalism and news articles use AP. When in doubt, Chicago is a safe default that looks professional in nearly every context.
Yes. Hyphenated words like "self-driving" are converted to "Self-Driving" — both parts are capitalized following standard title case conventions used by most style guides.
Yes. Words that are already in ALL CAPS (like "USA", "NASA", "HTML") are detected and preserved — they won't be incorrectly converted to "Usa" or "Nasa".
Absolutely. Title case is ideal for email subject lines — it looks professional, increases open rates compared to all-lowercase subjects, and follows email marketing best practices.