Title case converter
Capitalise a headline correctly for the style guide you actually have to follow. This converter applies the real AP, Chicago, MLA, and APA title-case rules side by side, so you can see exactly which small words stay lowercase and which get a capital, instead of guessing or capitalising every word.
Your formatted title appears here
Lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions of any length; capitalise everything else.
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Title case is applied in your browser. The first and last word are always capitalised, the word after a colon (the start of a subtitle) is capitalised, and hyphenated compounds are handled part by part. Style guides leave a few edge cases to editorial judgement, so proof the final title before you publish.
About the Title case converter
The title case converter capitalises a heading the way a specific style guide requires, rather than the generic rule of capitalising every word. It runs four sets of rules at once, AP, Chicago, MLA, and APA, and shows the result for each side by side, so you can see exactly which small words a style keeps lowercase and copy the version your publication, professor, or CMS expects.
Reach for it whenever a headline has to match a house style: a news desk on AP, a book or essay on Chicago, a Works Cited entry on MLA, or a reference title on APA. It is also the fastest way to settle the recurring office argument about whether to capitalise short words like of, to, and with, because each style answers that question differently and the tool applies the right answer automatically.
How to use it
- Paste or type your title into the box. Every style result updates as you type, so you can edit and re-check instantly.
- Pick the style you actually need, AP, Chicago, MLA, or APA, using the row of buttons. The featured result and its one-line rule update to match.
- Read the rule line under the featured result to understand why a given small word is lowercase or capitalised.
- Compare all four results in the grid below when you are unsure which style a brief means, since the differences are clearest seen together.
- Click Copy on the version you want and paste it straight into your document, headline field, or reference list.
Examples
The same title in four styles
Paste 'the lord of the rings: the return of the king'. Chicago and MLA return 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King', keeping of and the lowercase. AP and APA agree here because none of the lowercase words reach four letters. After a colon, the first word of the subtitle is always capitalised.
Where AP and Chicago disagree
Try 'a study of writing about the past'. Chicago lowercases the preposition about because it lowercases prepositions of any length. AP capitalises About because it is five letters and AP only lowercases prepositions of three letters or fewer. Seeing both at once tells you which house style you are really following.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do AP and Chicago capitalise different words?
- AP uses a length rule: lowercase conjunctions, articles, and prepositions of three letters or fewer, capitalise everything four letters or longer. Chicago uses a part-of-speech rule: lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions no matter how long. So a long preposition like between is lowercase in Chicago but capitalised in AP.
- Is the first or last word ever left lowercase?
- No. In every style supported here the first and last word of a title are always capitalised, even if they are normally a small word. The word that starts a subtitle after a colon is also capitalised. The tool applies all three of these overrides automatically.
- How are hyphenated words handled?
- Each part of a hyphenated compound is treated on its own. The first part is always capitalised, and the parts after the hyphen follow the same minor-word logic as standalone words. So Self-Esteem keeps both parts capitalised, while a small word after the hyphen can stay lowercase depending on the style.
- Does it change anything other than capitalisation?
- No. It only changes the case of letters. It preserves your spacing, punctuation, line breaks, and any numbers or symbols exactly as you typed them, so a title with a colon, an em dash, or a number comes back with the same characters and just the capitalisation corrected.
- Which style should I use if I am not told?
- Journalism and most marketing copy follow AP. Books, academic essays, and many publishers follow Chicago. MLA is the default for Works Cited titles in the humanities, and APA for reference titles in the social sciences. If a brief only says title case with no style, AP or Chicago is the safest general choice.
Good to know
Style guides leave a handful of cases to editorial judgement that no automatic tool can settle for you. The clearest example is the word to: as a preposition it is usually lowercase, but as part of an infinitive some editors capitalise it, and the rule is not consistent across guides. Phrasal-verb particles such as the up in Start Up versus the preposition up in Walk up the Hill are another judgement call. Treat the output as a correct, consistent first pass and proof the final headline.
Title case is not the only convention. Sentence case, capitalising only the first word and any proper nouns, is increasingly common for web headlines, email subject lines, and UI labels, and several major style guides now prefer it for digital text. If your CMS or brand guide asks for sentence case, use the general case converter instead. Reserve this title case tool for the contexts that genuinely require AP, Chicago, MLA, or APA headline capitalisation.