Paste your titles, headlines, or multi-line text below
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Paste text and click Apply Title Case// apply title case rules with smart exception handling
Apply title case to any text instantly. Supports APA, Chicago, AP, and MLA styles with smart exception handling for short words and prepositions.
Ready to format
Paste text and click Apply Title CaseChoose Chicago, APA, AP, or MLA from the tabs above the editor — each has different rules for exception words.
Type or paste one or more lines of titles, headlines, or article names into the input field.
Click Apply Title Case, then copy the formatted output with the Copy All button.
Title Case Formatter applies standard capitalization rules to your text based on the style guide you choose. It always capitalizes the first and last word, capitalizes major words, and keeps short function words (articles, prepositions, conjunctions) lowercase — unless they're at the start or end of a title or subtitle.
Title case is a capitalization style where the first letter of most words is capitalized. The exact rules vary by style guide, but generally major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are capitalized while minor words (articles like "a", "an", "the" and short prepositions) are lowercase — unless they're the first or last word in the title.
Chicago style capitalizes all "major" words and keeps short prepositions (under 5 letters), articles, and coordinating conjunctions lowercase. APA follows similar rules but has a slightly shorter exception list. AP style (used in journalism) tends to capitalize all words of 4+ letters. MLA is similar to Chicago but with a few additional exception words.
All style guides require capitalizing the first and last word of a title, regardless of what they are. So even a word like "the" is capitalized if it appears at the start or end of the title. This tool handles that automatically.
Yes! When your title contains a colon (e.g., "the hobbit: there and back again"), the tool treats each segment as its own title. This means the first word after the colon is always capitalized, which is the correct rule for subtitles in all major style guides.
Absolutely. The tool processes multi-line input, so you can paste a list of titles and each line will be formatted independently. Empty lines are preserved in the output, making it easy to format entire title lists in one go.
The capitalization logic works correctly for any text using Latin characters. The exception word list is English-specific, so non-English prepositions and articles won't be treated as exceptions — they'll be capitalized like regular words. For purely non-English content, the basic capitalization will still apply correctly.
It depends on your context: Chicago is standard for books, publishing, and general writing. APA is used in psychology, education, and social sciences. AP is the standard for journalism and news. MLA is common in humanities and academic writing. When in doubt, Chicago is a safe default for most general content.
No text you enter is stored or logged. All formatting is processed client-side in your browser via JavaScript. The PHP API fallback is stateless — your text is only used to compute the result and is immediately discarded with no database writes or logging.
A title case formatter is a tool that automatically applies the correct capitalization rules for titles, headlines, and headings. Rather than manually reviewing every word in a title to determine whether it should be capitalized, a title case formatter handles the logic for you in milliseconds — applying the right rules based on your chosen style guide.
Title case is distinct from sentence case (only the first word is capitalized) and from ALL CAPS (every word is fully capitalized). It sits in the middle: major words get their first letter capitalized, while short function words like prepositions, articles, and conjunctions are kept lowercase — as long as they don't appear at the very start or end of the title.
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Different organizations and publications have developed their own style guides over the decades, each with slightly different rules for capitalization. The most widely used are:
Despite the differences between style guides, all of them share a few universal rules that any title case formatter must implement correctly:
The words that are typically kept lowercase in title case (when not in the first or last position) are called exception words. These fall into three categories:
The exact set of exception words differs slightly between style guides. For example, AP style tends to capitalize more prepositions (those of 4+ letters), while Chicago keeps more prepositions lowercase regardless of length.
Knowing when title case is appropriate is as important as knowing how to apply it. Here are the most common use cases:
These three capitalization styles each serve different purposes and carry different tones:
Modern style trends have shifted toward sentence case for many digital contexts (Google, Apple, and many tech companies prefer it in their interfaces), but title case remains the standard for editorial content, publishing, and formal documents.
This tool is designed to be as fast and frictionless as possible. Simply paste your title or list of titles into the input field, select your preferred style guide from the tabs, and click Apply Title Case. The formatted output appears instantly in the right panel, where you can copy it with a single click.
For multi-line input, each line is processed independently — perfect for formatting an entire list of article titles or chapter headings at once. The tool also shows word count and character count stats so you can keep track of your content at a glance.