Softonic

Title Capitalization Tool

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Title case is the English headline convention: most words get a capital letter while short function words stay lowercase. This tool converts any English title in one click. It capitalizes every word except 19 small words (a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, in, nor, of, on, or, per, the, to, vs, via, with) and always capitalizes the first and last word, which is the shared core rule of the AP, APA, Chicago and MLA guides.

How to title-case a headline

  1. 1

    Paste the title

    Any mix of cases works. The tool lowercases everything first, so ALL-CAPS or jumbled input comes out clean.

  2. 2

    Pick a preset

    Common, AP, APA or Chicago. All four presets currently apply the same proven small-word list, so the output is identical; the guide differences explained below are for manual fine-tuning.

  3. 3

    Run the conversion

    Every word is capitalized except the 19 small words, which stay lowercase in the middle of the title.

  4. 4

    Restore special casing

    First and last words are always capitalized. Re-type acronyms and brand names (NASA, iPhone) afterwards, because the initial lowercasing removes their special casing.

Which words stay lowercase

Group Words
Articles a, an, the
Short conjunctions and, as, but, nor, or
Short prepositions at, by, for, in, of, on, per, to, via, vs, with

Longer prepositions such as from, over, into and about are not on the list, so they come out capitalized (“Working From Home”). Note that with, per and via do stay lowercase here, which matches Chicago and MLA practice; AP would capitalize the four-letter “With”.

What the published style guides differ on

  • AP: capitalizes prepositions of four letters or more (With, Over, From).
  • APA (7th edition): capitalizes every word of four letters or more in titles and headings.
  • Chicago: lowercases prepositions regardless of length, and prefers lowercase small words inside hyphenated compounds (“State-of-the-Art”).
  • MLA: lowercases articles, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions; everything else is capitalized.

This tool applies the single common list above in every preset, which agrees with all four guides for the vast majority of words. Where the guides disagree, mostly four-letter prepositions and hyphenated compounds, adjust by hand using these notes.

Edge cases worth knowing

  • First and last word are always capitalized, even when they are on the small-word list (“A Room with a View”).
  • After a colon: the guides usually capitalize the first word of a subtitle, but this tool decides by position only, so a small word right after a colon stays lowercase. Check it manually.
  • Acronyms and brands: the input is lowercased before converting, so NASA becomes Nasa and iPhone becomes Iphone. Restore official casing afterwards.
  • Hyphenated compounds: every part is capitalized (“State-Of-The-Art”). Chicago prefers “State-of-the-Art”, a quick manual fix.
  • Accents and other scripts: the conversion is Unicode-safe, so café becomes Café correctly. Scripts without capital letters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew) pass through unchanged; title case is a Latin-alphabet concept.

Tips

  • No need to clean up ALL-CAPS input first: everything is lowercased before capitalizing.
  • “vs” stays lowercase (“Cats vs Dogs”), the usual convention in matchup headlines.
  • Use title case for headlines and headings; meta descriptions and interface copy read more naturally in sentence case.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. All four presets currently apply the same 19-word lowercase list, so the result is identical whichever one you pick. The real differences between those guides are small, mostly four-letter prepositions like “with” and hyphenated compounds, and they are documented on this page so you can adjust by hand.

The first word of a title is always capitalized; that is a rule every style guide agrees on, and the same applies to the last word. In the middle, articles like “the” stay lowercase because they carry little meaning on their own.

No. It decides by word position, not punctuation, so a small word right after a colon stays lowercase. Style guides usually capitalize the first word of a subtitle, so fix that one word manually.

No. The title is lowercased before conversion, so NASA becomes Nasa and iPhone becomes Iphone. Restore that casing manually after converting.

The title is sent to our server over an encrypted connection to run the conversion and is not saved. Our usage statistics record only which style preset was used, never the text itself.

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