Free title case converter
Paste a headline, or a list of them, and convert it to title case in AP, APA or Chicago style, to sentence case, UPPERCASE or lowercase. Each line is also measured in pixels against the width Google gives a title on desktop, so you can see whether the capitalized version still fits. Conversion happens in your browser as you type.
AP title case: How to Speed Up a WordPress Site With Caching.
How to Speed Up a WordPress Site With Caching| Headline | Characters | Pixels | As a title tag |
|---|---|---|---|
| How to Speed Up a WordPress Site With Caching | 45 | 428 | Fits |
- AP style: words of four letters or more are capitalized, along with the first and last word. Articles, conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer (a, the, and, but, if, in, of, on, to…) stay lowercase.
- A program cannot tell a preposition from an adverb. We capitalize the particle in common phrasal verbs (“Set Up”, “Log In”, “Turn Off”), but reread headlines with words like up, in, on, off, over and like.
Which words stay lowercase in each style
All three style guides capitalize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns. They differ on the small words.
| Style | Lowercase | Always capitalized |
|---|---|---|
| AP | Articles (a, an, the), and conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer: and, but, or, if, as, at, by, in, of, on, to | Words of four letters or more, the first word and the last word |
| APA (7th edition) | The same short words as AP | Words of four letters or more, the first word, and the first word after a colon, dash or end punctuation |
| Chicago (18th edition) | Articles; and, but, for, or, nor; "to" and "as"; prepositions of four letters or fewer such as from, into, with | Prepositions of five letters or more, the first word and the last word |
The same headline can come out three ways. "A Walk Through the Park With My Dog" is AP and APA, because "with" has four letters. Chicago writes "A Walk Through the Park with My Dog". Conjunctions split the other way: AP lowercases "if", "so" and "yet", while Chicago capitalizes them.
We implement the AP and Chicago rules as written above, and APA with the same word-length rule as AP. Earlier editions of the Chicago manual lowercased every preposition regardless of length, so if your publication follows the 17th edition, lowercase words such as "through" and "between" by hand.
What the converter keeps and what to recheck
- Brand capitalization is kept. A word with a capital after its first letter, such as iPhone, WordPress or SEO, is left exactly as you typed it. Web addresses and email addresses are left alone too.
- Hyphenated words are capitalized part by part, with small words lowercase in the middle: "Step-by-Step", "State-of-the-Art".
- The first word after a colon is capitalized, because it starts a subtitle.
- Phrasal verbs. In "Set Up Your Site", "up" is an adverb and every style capitalizes it; in "Walk up the Hill" it is a preposition. No program can tell the two apart reliably, so we capitalize the particle after common verbs (set up, sign up, log in, turn off, take over) and lowercase it elsewhere. Reread headlines that contain up, in, on, off, over or like.
- All-capitals input. If you paste a headline in capitals, acronyms cannot be told from ordinary words, so "SEO" becomes "Seo". Fix those by hand.
Sentence case capitalizes only the first word of each sentence. It keeps acronyms and brand capitalization but lowercases everything else, including names it cannot recognize, so check proper nouns afterwards.
Title case, sentence case and search results
Capitalization is not a ranking factor. Google treats "how to store bread" and "How to Store Bread" as the same words. What changes is how the result reads and how much room it takes: capital letters are wider than lowercase ones, so a title-cased headline uses more of the roughly 580 pixels Google shows for a title on desktop, and an all-capitals one uses far more.
The table under the converter measures each line in the font Google uses for titles and tells you whether it fits. If a headline is over, shorten it or switch to sentence case rather than letting the end be cut. To see the cut itself, paste the result into the SERP snippet preview. For what makes a title worth clicking, see the title tag mistakes that cost clicks.
Whichever style you pick, use it everywhere. A site where some titles are in title case and others in sentence case looks unedited, in search results and in your own navigation.
Using it for a whole site
Paste one headline per line to convert a list in one go, for example a column of post titles exported from a spreadsheet. Lines are converted independently, so the first word of every line is capitalized. Copy the result back with the copy button.
Page titles and H1 headings do not have to match in style, but they should not disagree in substance. When they differ a lot, Google is more likely to replace your title with one it builds from the page.
Common questions
What is title case?
Title case capitalizes the main words of a headline and leaves short function words such as "a", "of" and "and" in lowercase. The exact list of lowercase words depends on the style guide: AP, APA and Chicago each draw the line in a slightly different place.
Should "is" be capitalized in a title?
Yes. "Is" is a verb, and every major style capitalizes verbs no matter how short they are. The same goes for "be", "are", "was" and for short pronouns such as "it" and "my".
What is the difference between AP and Chicago title case?
AP decides by length: conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer are lowercase, anything longer is capitalized. Chicago decides by word type: it lowercases prepositions of up to four letters, such as "with" and "from", and only five coordinating conjunctions, so "if", "so" and "yet" are capitalized.
Is title case or sentence case better for SEO?
Neither ranks better. Search engines ignore capitalization when matching words. Sentence case is slightly narrower, so a little more text fits before a title is cut off, and title case can look more formal. Pick one and apply it consistently.
Does the converter change brand names like iPhone or WordPress?
No. Any word that already has a capital letter after its first character is left as typed. The exception is input written entirely in capitals, where there is no way to tell a brand or acronym from an ordinary word.