Converting Text to Title Case

Title Capitalization Made Easy

7 min readSep 20, 2023

A woman sat at a laptop with a cup of coffee and pair of glasses nearby — Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

What is Title Case?

Title case is a headline formatting style that is often used for books, blogs, articles, newspapers, songs, and movies. It makes your titles easier to digest by your readers, it commands attention, and it just looks right.

In a nutshell, title case means capitalizing important words and leaving minor words lower case.

When you need to capitalize your title simply and easily, use TitleFormat, the ultimate title capitalization tool.

Keep reading for a detailed explanation of title case capitalization rules.

When Should I Use Title Case?

Title case should generally be used for the titles of books, songs, movies, TV shows, and games. Whilst it is not essential, most writers also choose title case for blog titles, article headlines and other online content such as Medium.com story titles and Substack post titles.

See our articles When Should I Use Title Case? and Title Case vs Sentence Case for a simple explanation of the differences between sentence case and title case, and which you should use in each situation.

Converting Text to Title Case With TitleFormat Title Case Tool

Using TitleFormat, you can effortlessly convert text into title case with precision. Here’s how it works:

Paste your text into TitleFormat’s title case tool.
Click the “Convert” button.
Voila! Your text is now in title case with perfection.

You can Copy your formatted title and paste it wherever you need it, or Save it for future reference.

It’s also installable as an app on your device so you can format your titles even when you’re offline. Check out our Install page for super simple installation instructions.

Try it for yourself and see how TitleFormat the title capitalization tool converts headlines to title case with ease.

Title Capitalization Rules

The bad news is that there is no universally accepted set of rules for headline capitalization. Instead, there are 8 commonly used style guides which each have their own interpretation of which words should be capitalized in a title.

These 8 style guides are:

AMA (American Medical Association) Manual of Style
AP (Associated Press) Stylebook
APA (American Psychological Association) Publication Manual
Bluebook
Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)
MLA (Modern Language Association) Handbook
New York Times Stylebook
Wikipedia

These guides almost universally agree when it comes to the following rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word (with exception of APA, Bluebook, MLA who do not have a clear rule)
Capitalize adjectives
Capitalize nouns
Capitalize pronouns
Capitalize verbs
Do not capitalize articles

However, there is significant disagreement when it comes to capitalization of adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and to in infinitives. Let’s dive into the similarities and differences between each of the major style guides. You may also want to refer to our article, Title Case Rules for further details.

AMA Title Case Capitalization Rules

AMA style is used in scientific and medical fields and as such aims to be clear and concise. As a result of its scientific origins, it contains rules for naming of species and other scientific terms that some other style guides to not cover. The AMA has the following title capitalization rules:

Capitalize the first word.
Capitalize the last word.
Capitalize major words (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions)
Capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word if both words are equal and not suffixes/prefixes
Capitalize the first non-Greek letter after a lowercase Greek letter
Capitalize the genus in species names but not the epithet
Do not capitalize articles
Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions
Do not capitalize prepositions of four letters or fewer
Do not capitalize to in infinitives
Do not capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word it is a suffix/prefix

AP Title Case Capitalization Rules

AP style was created by Associated Press journalists and is used in many aspects of the media industry including news, magazines, marketing and PR. AP Stylebook has the following title capitalization rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize all principal words (verbs, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives)
Capitalize prepositions of four letters or more
Capitalize conjunctions of four letters or more
Capitalize to in infinitives
Do not capitalize articles

APA Title Case Capitalization Rules

APA (American Psychological Association) style is commonly used for research papers, scientific journals and textbooks in many scientific and academic fields, but especially the behavioral and social sciences. APA style has the following rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize all major words (verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs)
Capitalize the second part of hyphenated words unless it follows a prefix (eg Anti-)
Capitalize all words of four letters or more

Bluebook Title Case Capitalization Rules

Bluebook is used primarily in the legal field. Bluebook specifies the following title case rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions
Do not capitalize articles
Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions
Do not capitalize prepositions of four letters or fewer
Do not capitalize to in infinitives

Chicago Title Case Capitalization Rules

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) is one of the most widely used style guides in publishing, media, and social sciences. Chicago has the following rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adjectives
Do not capitalize the conjunctions and, but, for, nor
Do not capitalize articles
Do not capitalize prepositions, except when used as an adverb, adjective, or conjunction
Do not capitalize to
Do not capitalize the second part of a latin species name
Do not capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word where the first part is a prefix (eg. Anti-)

MLA Title Case Capitalization Rules

The Modern Language Association (MLA) handbook is a style guide frequently used in education and adademic articles and journals, especially within the humanities. MLA style adopts the following rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns
Capitalize the second part of hyphenated words unless the first word is a prefix (eg Anti-)
Do not capitalize articles
Do not capitalize prepositions
Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions
Do not capitalize to in infinitives

New York Times Title Case Capitalization Rules

NY Times Manual of Style and Usage was originally developed as a reference for the newspaper’s contributors. But over time has been more widely adopted throughout the news and media industry. It has some subtle variations from some of the other style guides and generally has more exceptions, requiring the writer to take care when implementing its guidelines. NY Times style has the following capitalization rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize verbs, nouns, and pronouns
Capitalize adverbs except as, but
Capitalize the coordinating conjunctions nor, yet, so. Do not capitalize the other coordinating conjunctions
Do not capitalize two letter prepositions except up
Capitalize three letter prepositions except but, for (except when being used to mean “in support of”, in which case it should be capitalized), via
Capitalize all prepositions of four letters or more
Capitalize subordinating conjunctions except as, if
Do not capitalize the second part of a hyphenated word if it follows a two or three letter prefix
Do not capitalize to in infinitives

Wikipedia Title Case Capitalization Rules

Wikipedia Manual of Style is the official set of rules to be used on Wikipedia, one of the world’s largest websites. Wikipedia has the following rules governing title case capitalization:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize adjectives, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, subordinating conjunctions, and verbs
Capitalize prepositions of five letters or more
Capitalize particles of phrasal verbs
Capitalize the first word in a compound preposition
Do not capitalize articles
Do not capitalize prepositions of four letters or fewer
Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions
Do not capitalize to in infinitives

Which Words Does TitleFormat Capitalize?

Instead of following one specific style guide, or expecting you to know which rules to choose for formatting your headline, based on many years experience writing and editing content online, we cherrypicked a set of rules which make most sense in most situations, especially when formatting titles for blogs, articles, newsletters and other non-academic online content.

The rules are simple and result in consistency. For example, in some style guides, the word like would be capitalized when used as an adjective, conjunction, noun, or verb but lowercased when used as a preposition. This might make sense gramatically, but from the reader’s perspective it can appear inconsistent.

For this reason, our title case tool treats words the same, irrespective of the way in which they are being used.

TitleFormat applies the following rules:

Capitalize the first word
Capitalize the last word
Capitalize any words of 4 letters or more
Do not capitalize articles (a, an, the…)
Do not capitalize coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for…)
Do not capitalize short prepositions (at, by, to, on…)
Do not capitalize to in infinitives
Capitalize the first part of a hyphenated word and subsequent parts, unless the word should be lowercased as per any of the above rules. eg “Case-by-Case”

Try it now.

What are some examples of Title Case?

It can be easier to understand the differences between title case and sentence case with some simple examples.

Sentence Case                          Title Case
Snakes on a plane                      Snakes on a Plane
Lord of the rings                      Lord of the Rings
The subtle art of not giving a f*ck    The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Marriage isn't for you                 Marriage Isn't For You
Six habits of deeply miserable people  Six Habits of Deeply Miserable People

Ready to Simplify Title Capitalization?

Give TitleFormat’s title capitalization tool a try now and elevate your titles to the next level.