How to Change Text Case in Word, Google Docs, Excel, and VS Code

Change case with the command that matches the app you are in: Word’s Change Case menu (not Shift+F3) for sentence case, Google Docs’ Format → Text → Capitalization for lowercase, UPPERCASE, or capitalize-each-word, Excel or Google Sheets’ UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER formulas, and VS Code’s Transform commands for a code selection. None of those built-ins apply a real title-case small-word list, camelCase, or snake_case.

Pick the command by outcome

• A normal sentence → Word’s Sentence case, or a sentence-case converter. Docs, Excel, and VS Code do not offer this.
• Every word capitalized → Word’s Capitalize Each Word, Docs’ Title case, Excel’s PROPER, or VS Code’s Transform to Title Case. Short words such as “of” and “the” get capitals too.
• ALL CAPS or all lowercase → every app above has a direct command.
• camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, or a URL slug → none of these apps do that by default. Use a naming converter.

The same line, measured on CaseSwitch

Word’s Capitalize Each Word, Docs’ Title case, and Excel’s PROPER match capitalized case below, not title case. These strings are the converter output for “the lord of the rings” and two inputs those menus also mishandle.

the lord of the rings
sentence      The lord of the rings
title         The Lord of the Rings
capitalized   The Lord Of The Rings

well-known author
title         Well-known Author
capitalized   Well-Known Author

U.S. army arrived today.
sentence      U.s. Army arrived today.
title         U.s. Army Arrived Today.
capitalized   U.S. Army Arrived Today.

iPhone vs eBay
sentence      Iphone vs ebay
kebab-case    i-phone-vs-e-bay
URL slug      iphone-vs-ebay

“Of” stays lower only in title case. The hyphen in “well-known” gains a capital only in capitalized case. “U.S.” keeps both initials only in capitalized case, because sentence case and title case lowercase the whole token and a period without a space does not start a new word. None of the four styles keep “iPhone.”

The full set, including camelCase and accented slugs, is in case conversion examples.

Microsoft Word

Select the text. On the Home tab, in the Font group, open Change Case (the Aa icon). The menu lists Sentence case, lowercase, UPPERCASE, Capitalize Each Word, and tOGGLE cASE.

What Shift+F3 actually cycles

On Windows, Shift+F3 cycles the selection through case styles. Sentence case is not in that cycle — it is only on the menu. If you needed “This is a sentence.” and the shortcut gave you “This Is A Sentence.”, you landed on Capitalize Each Word. Open the Aa menu and choose Sentence case. On a Mac, the same shortcut may need the fn key if the top row is controlling brightness or volume.

Capitalize Each Word is not title case

Capitalize Each Word puts a capital on every word, including of, the, and, and a. A heading style used by many publishers keeps those short words lowercase in the middle: “How to Change Text Case in Word”, not “How To Change Text Case In Word”. Word will not apply an APA, MLA, or Chicago small-word list.

For that heading style, use the Title Case Converter, then check names such as iPhone. The difference between the two styles is covered in

sentence case vs title case.

tOGGLE cASE is not alternating case

Word’s tOGGLE cASE flips each letter’s current case: Hello becomes hELLO. Alternating case ignores what you typed and writes a fixed rhythm: Hello becomes hElLo. Use toggle (or Inverse Case) to repair Caps Lock. Do not use it to build mocking text.

Google Docs

Select the text, then choose Format → Text → Capitalization. The built-in options are lowercase, UPPERCASE, and Title case. Docs’ Title case capitalizes every word. There is no sentence-case command and no camelCase command in that menu. Docs also has no default keyboard shortcut for capitalization; the menu is the reliable path.

If you need sentence case for an email you drafted in Docs, copy the paragraph into a sentence-case tool and paste the plain text back. Recheck proper nouns after you paste.

The Sentence Case Converter capitalizes the start of each sentence and leaves the rest lowercase.

Excel and Google Sheets

Formulas change a copy of the cell. They do not restyle the original until you copy the result and Paste special → Values over it.

• =UPPER(A1) → THIS IS A LABEL
• =LOWER(A1) → this is a label
• =PROPER(A1) → This Is A Label

PROPER is capitalized case. It is the wrong function for a sentence, and it will also capitalize letters after an apostrophe in some names (Mcdonald'S is a common miss). There is no SENTENCE function in Excel or Google Sheets. For a paragraph sitting in a cell, convert it outside the sheet and paste values back.

Flash Fill in Excel can sometimes copy a case pattern you type in the next column, but it guesses. Check every row before you delete the source column. Do not Flash Fill a column of passwords or customer names on a shared workbook.

VS Code

Select the text, open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows and Linux, Cmd+Shift+P on macOS), and run one of the built-in transforms: Transform to Uppercase, Transform to Lowercase, or Transform to Title Case. Title Case here capitalizes each word. It is a code-editor convenience, not a publisher’s title style.

The default transform list does not include camelCase, PascalCase, snake_case, or kebab-case. An extension can add those, or you can convert the identifier in a tool that shows the result before you paste it back into the file.

Naming styles and when each one belongs in code, SQL, or a URL are covered in the developer naming conventions guide.

When the app command is the wrong tool

• You are on a phone and there is no Shift+F3.
• You need camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, or a slug. App menus do not do this.
• You need title case that keeps short words lowercase.
• The text was pasted from a PDF with a line break in the middle of every sentence. Fix the line breaks before you change case.
• The string is a secret, a draft contract, or a customer list and you do not want another website to receive it.

CaseSwitch runs the transform in the browser tab after the page loads. Start at the case converter for sentence, title, upper, and lower case, or open the dedicated tool when you need one style with examples.

Check names after every automatic change

Sentence case, PROPER, and title case all fail on brands and acronyms. iPhone, eBay, McDonald’s, NASA, and JSON will not survive a naive lowercase pass. Automated case is the first pass. The second pass is your eyes.

Where the text actually goes

Word, Excel, and VS Code on your machine transform the selection locally. A Google Doc or a Word file saved to OneDrive is already on that vendor’s servers before you touch capitalization. A browser converter is a different tradeoff: the page loads from CaseSwitch, and the case change itself stays in the tab. That matters when the paragraph is a private draft rather than a public heading.

Questions people ask

Does Shift+F3 in Word apply sentence case?

No. In Microsoft Word, Shift+F3 cycles the selection through case styles, and Sentence case is not one of the steps in that cycle. Open Home → Change Case (the Aa button) and choose Sentence case when that is the style you want.

Is Google Docs Title case the same as APA or Chicago title case?

No. Google Docs Title case capitalizes the first letter of each word, including short words such as of, the, and and. APA, MLA, and Chicago leave many of those short words lowercase in the middle of a heading. Docs will not apply that small-word list for you.

Does Excel’s PROPER function create sentence case?

No. PROPER capitalizes the first letter of every word and lowercases the rest, so “the team meeting” becomes “The Team Meeting.” That is capitalized case, not sentence case. Excel and Google Sheets have no built-in SENTENCE function.