Title Capitalization Tool
Capitalise a headline properly in AP, APA, Chicago or MLA style, with acronyms left alone, and check it fits a Google result before you publish.
Capitalise your headline
As a search headline
Four editors, four correct answers
Ask four editors to capitalise the same headline and you can get four different results, none of them wrong. “Title case” is not one rule, it is at least four, and the differences are real enough that publications write them into their style guides and argue about them.
Most converters deal with this by offering a single generic “title case” and hoping. This one asks which guide you follow, applies it properly, and tells you in one line what the others would have done differently.
Where the guides actually differ
Almost entirely on prepositions, and almost entirely on length.
- AP, the Associated Press style used by newsrooms and most blogs, capitalises any word of four letters or more. So “With”, “From” and “Between” go up, while “in”, “on”, “at”, “by” and “for” stay down.
- APA, used across the social sciences, applies the same four-letter threshold to prepositions and conjunctions alike: three letters or fewer stay down.
- Chicago, used in books and long-form publishing, lowercases every preposition however long it is. “Between” and “Within” go down.
- MLA, used in humanities scholarship, follows Chicago and additionally lowercases the “to” of an infinitive, as in “How to Run a Marathon”.
All four capitalise the first and last word whatever they happen to be, and all four capitalise the first word after a colon, because a subtitle begins a new title.
The details that usually get broken
Acronyms and brand spellings survive. NASA stays NASA rather than becoming Nasa. iPhone stays iPhone rather than IPhone. eBay stays eBay. A word already written with unusual capitals was written that way deliberately. Most converters lowercase everything first and then lift the initial letter, which quietly destroys every proper noun in the line and is the single commonest fault in this category of tool.
Hyphenated compounds are handled properly. “state-of-the-art” becomes “State-of-the-Art”: the outer parts capitalised, the article and preposition in the middle left down. Not “State-of-the-art”, which stops halfway, and not “State-Of-The-Art”, which capitalises words no guide would.
Subtitles restart. “the best running shoes: a complete guide” becomes “The Best Running Shoes: A Complete Guide”, with that “A” capitalised even though a loose “a” mid-headline would not be. The same applies after a question mark, an exclamation mark or an em dash.
Checked as a headline, not just converted
A title is going to end up in a search result, so the finished version is measured in pixels against the roughly 600 that Google gives a desktop title, using the type size it actually renders at. That is a more useful check than a character count, because capitals are wide: the same headline shouted takes noticeably more room than the same headline in title case, which is one of the practical arguments against shouting.
You are also warned about a headline in full capitals, about double spaces and spaces before punctuation, and about titles so short they give a searcher almost nothing to match against.
Title case or sentence case?
Both are defensible and the argument predates the web. Title case reads as more formal and is traditional for news and print. Sentence case is easier to scan, copes better with long headlines, and has become house style at many technology publications for that reason, which is why it is in the dropdown alongside the four guides. The only wrong answer is using both on one site. Pick one, write it into your style guide, and apply it to the navigation as well as the headlines.
Does capitalisation affect rankings?
No. Google is not case-sensitive about your keywords and does not reward one style over another. It affects two real things instead. Capitals are wider, so a title in title case fits more words into the space a result gives you. And a headline in full capitals is more likely to be rewritten by Google, which takes the decision out of your hands entirely.
Related tools
- The Blog Title Analyzer scores the headline itself out of 100 and compares several side by side.
- The SERP Snippet Preview Tool draws the finished title inside a real search result, with the description and the address.
- The Heading Structure Checker makes sure the headings you are capitalising sit in a sound order to begin with.
- The Text Case Converter handles ordinary case changes on any length of text, including the code and slug cases.
Is anything stored?
No. Everything happens in your browser as you type, which is why the result appears without a button to press. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is kept.
Title case is not one thing
Ask four editors to capitalise the same headline and you can get four different answers, all of them correct.
Four guides, one dropdown
AP, APA, Chicago and MLA, plus plain sentence case. Pick the one your publication follows and the result appears in the box below, ready to copy.
It tells you what changes
A single line under the result names the words the other guides would capitalise differently, so you can see the consequence of your choice without four panels on the screen.
Acronyms survive
NASA stays NASA, iPhone stays iPhone, eBay stays eBay. A word already written with unusual capitals was written that way on purpose, so it is left exactly as you typed it.
The awkward rules too
First and last word always up. First word after a colon up, because a subtitle starts a new title. Hyphenated compounds capitalised on the outside and lowercased in the middle.
Checked as a search headline
The finished title measured in pixels against the roughly 600 Google gives a desktop result, so you find out it is too wide here rather than after publishing.
Copy and go
The result sits in its own box with a copy button on it. Nothing to select, no second step, and the original stays where it is so you can compare.
Questions about title capitalisation
Which style guide should I use?
Whichever your publication already uses. If nobody has told you, use AP: it is what most newsrooms and the majority of blogs follow, and its rule is the easiest to hold in your head, which is that anything four letters or longer gets a capital. Use APA for social science writing, Chicago for books and long-form publishing, and MLA for humanities scholarship. What matters more than the choice is applying it consistently, because a site that mixes styles looks careless in a way readers notice without being able to name.
What exactly do the guides disagree about?
Prepositions, almost entirely. AP and APA capitalise any word of four letters or more, so "With", "From" and "Between" all take capitals. Chicago lowercases every preposition however long it is, so those three go down. MLA follows Chicago and additionally lowercases the "to" of an infinitive, as in "How to Run a Marathon". On everything else, the articles and the coordinating conjunctions, they broadly agree. That is why the line under the result only ever names a handful of words: those are the only places your choice changes anything.
Why is the first word after a colon capitalised?
Because a subtitle is treated as a new title, and every guide capitalises the first word of a title. So "The best running shoes: a complete guide" becomes "The Best Running Shoes: A Complete Guide", with that "A" capitalised even though a stray "a" in the middle of a headline would not be. The same applies after a question mark, an exclamation mark or an em dash.
How are hyphenated words handled?
The parts of a compound are treated as small words in their own right. The outer parts always take a capital and an article or preposition in the middle follows the rule it would follow alone, so "state-of-the-art" becomes "State-of-the-Art". Two things this is not: "State-of-the-art", which stops halfway and is the commonest mistake, and "State-Of-The-Art", which capitalises words no guide would.
Should headlines be title case or sentence case?
Both work and the argument is older than the web. Title case looks more formal and is the traditional choice for news and print. Sentence case is easier to read at a glance, copes better with long headlines, and has become house style at a lot of technology publications for exactly that reason. Sentence case is in the dropdown for that reason. The only genuinely wrong answer is using both on the same site.
Does capitalisation affect rankings?
No. Google is not case-sensitive about your keywords and will not reward one style over another. It affects two real things instead. Capitals are wider, so a headline in title case fits more words into the roughly 600 pixels a desktop result allows than the same headline shouted. And a title in full capitals is more likely to be rewritten by Google, which takes the decision away from you entirely.