Title Case Converter
Choose a style guide and paste your headlines, one per line. Each word is marked so you can see why it was capitalised or kept lowercase.
Runs entirely in your browser. Your text is not uploaded.
Why the style guides disagree
All four guides lowercase articles and short conjunctions. They split on prepositions: Chicago and MLA lowercase every preposition, however long, while AP and APA capitalise any word of four or more letters. Edit the headline and watch the highlighted words, the only ones where the guides give different answers.
A Guide to Living with Less: What Is Worth Keeping through the Years
Highlighted words change between guides. Verbs such as “is” are always capitalised, and every guide capitalises the first word after a colon.
How to use the title case
- Pick AP, Chicago, APA or MLA.
- Paste one or more titles, one per line.
- Check the word-by-word breakdown, then copy the result.
Questions
Which words are not capitalized in a title?
Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for) and prepositions are usually lowercase unless they are the first or last word. The guides disagree on long prepositions: Chicago and MLA lower-case "through" and "between", while AP and APA capitalise any word of four letters or more.
Is "is" capitalized in title case?
Yes, in every major style. "Is" is a verb, and verbs are always capitalised however short they are.
Do you capitalize after a colon in a title?
Yes. All four styles capitalise the first word of a subtitle after a colon.
What about hyphenated words?
We capitalise each part of a hyphenated compound ("Self-Report", "Well-Being"), which is APA and Chicago practice for most compounds. Short minor parts like "-in-" stay lowercase.