Updated: 12/30/2021 by
In Microsoft Word, you can use the keyboard shortcut Shift+F3 to change selected text between uppercase, lowercase, and title case.
Selecting a case
- Highlight all the text you want to change. If you want to change the case for the whole document you can use the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut to select everything.
- Hold down Shift and press F3.
- When you hold Shift and press F3, the text toggles from sentence case (first letter uppercase and the rest lowercase), to all uppercase (all capital letters), and then all lowercase.
Note
If you are using a laptop or an Apple Mac, the function keys may not be enabled without the use of the Fn key. You may need to hold Fn, in addition to Shift, when you press F3.
If you’re not able to get Shift+F3 to work in Microsoft Word 2007 or later, you can try the following option instead.
- In the menu bar, on the Home tab, click the Change Case icon, which has an uppercase ‘A’ and lowercase ‘a.’
- Select the appropriate option from the list of values. For example, if you want to change to all uppercase letters, select the UPPERCASE option. If you want to change to all lowercase letters, select the lowercase option.
Tip
Use our text tool to convert any text from uppercase to lowercase.
You can stop manually changing your text if you want to adjust the capitalization. We’ll show you how to easily change letter case in Word.
If you want to change the capitalization of a word, sentence, or paragraph, you don’t have to do this manually in Microsoft Word. You can easily adjust the text to all uppercase or lowercase, sentence case or toggle case, or capitalize the first letter of each word.
While not difficult to do, changing the capitalization or letter case in one fell swoop may be one of those Microsoft Word features you didn’t know existed. So here, we’ll show you how to do this in Word on your computer, the web, and your mobile device.
Change Capitalization and Letter Case on Your Desktop
On both Windows and Mac, you can make your text changes the same way.
- Open your document in Word and select the text you want to edit. You can do this easily by dragging your cursor through it, whether a word, phrase or more.
- Next, go to the Home tab and click the Change Case button in the Font section of the ribbon. The icon for the button is an uppercase and lowercase letter A (Aa).
- Select the capitalization option or letter case you’d like to use from the drop-down list. Each option shows its appearance as its name.
If you choose Uppercase and want to use a smaller version of the capital letters, right-click the selected text and choose Font. On the Font tab of the pop-up window, check the box for Small Caps and click OK.
Capitalization and Letter Case in Word for the Web
You have the same options for adjusting capitalization or letter case in Word for the web.
- Open your document in Word online and select the text you want to edit by dragging your cursor through it.
- Go to the Home tab and click More Font Options (three dots) in the ribbon.
- Move your cursor to Change Case and make your selection in the pop-out menu.
Capitalization and Letter Case in the Word Mobile App
If you use Microsoft Word on your mobile device, you’ll be glad to know you can also change the capitalization or letter case in the app.
- Open your document in the Word mobile app and select the text. You can do this by tapping a word to highlight it and, if necessary, dragging the handles to include all the text you want to change.
- Tap the three dots on the right of the toolbar above the keyboard.
- When the menu opens at the bottom, be sure Home is selected. Then tap More Formatting.
- Choose Change Case and then select the capitalization or letter case option.
Make Text Changes Easy in Microsoft Word
Little-known features like this one to change the capitalization or letter case in just a couple of clicks or taps can be a huge time-saver. You can eliminate manual typing and reduce the risk of errors when changing your text simultaneously.
For more, take a look at how to add a drop cap in Microsoft Word and how to adjust the font-kerning in a Word document.
3 Ways to Change or Convert Case in Microsoft Word Documents (with Shortcuts)
by Avantix Learning Team | Updated August 1, 2022
Applies to: Microsoft® Word® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)
You can change case in Microsoft Word documents by changing character formatting or by converting case. If you want to be able to easily change case (like removing All Caps), it’s best to change case by applying formatting such as All Caps or Small Caps. Alternatively, you use the Change Case command to convert case. This command offers a series of options including upper, lower, capitalize each word and sentence case. You can also use a keyboard shortcut to move through different case options.
Recommended article: How to Create a Table of Contents in Word
Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person classroom Word courses >
Change Case using the Font dialog box (apply or remove All Caps or Small Caps)
To apply All Caps or Small Caps to text as a format using the Font dialog box:
- Select the text.
- Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
- Click the dialog box launcher on the bottom right of the Font group. Alternatively, press Ctrl + D. The Font dialog box appears.
- Select All Caps or Small Caps.
- Click OK.
The Font dialog box appears as follows:
This is usually the best way to apply All Caps since it’s a format and can be removed using the Font dialog box. You can also build this format into styles.
Change case using the Change Case command in the Ribbon
If text has been formatted with hard capitals where the user has pressed the Caps Lock key when typing text, you can remove or change the capitalization using the Change Case command. You can convert a selection typed in upper case to title case, lower case or even sentence case.
To change case using the Change Case command in the Ribbon:
- Select the text.
- Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
- Click Change Case in the Font group (Aa). A drop-down menu appears.
- Select the desired case.
The Change Case drop-down menu appears as follows:
The following options appear in the Change Case drop-down menu:
- Sentence case – capitalizes the first letter of a sentence. If there are multiple sentences, Word will capitalize the next word after a period.
- Lowercase – removes all capitalization.
- UPPERCASE – capitalizes all letters in the selection.
- Capitalize Each Word – capitalizes each word in the selection (often called title case).
- tOGGLE cASE – shifts between two cases. For example, if the first letter of each word in the selection was capitalized, this command would switch to the opposite formatting with the first letter of each word as lower case and the other letters in upper case.
Change case using keyboard shortcuts
You can use keyboard shortcuts to move between several of the options in the Change Case drop-down menu:
- Select the text.
- Press Shift + F3. Keep pressing Shift + F3 to move between UPPERCASE, lowercase and Capitalize Each Word.
Some users may need to press the Fn key as well to activate the F3 key.
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In this course, we will talk about how to change the case of text in Microsoft Word. Meanwhile, this is the continuation of the previous tutorial on how to change font style and size in Microsoft Word which are part in formatting text in your documents.
Furthermore, you can also change the case of a character you are typing by holding down the SHIFT key as you type. You can also press the CAPS LOCK key to capitalize every letter you type. Press the CAPS LOCK key again to turn off capitalization.
Table of contents
- Change Case in Microsoft Word
- What is change case in MS Word?
- Change Case Option in MS Word
- Where is the change case command in word?
- What is Title case in MS Word?
- What is sentence case in MS Word?
- How To Change Case in Microsoft Word
- Change Case in Word Shortcut
- Summary
What is change case in MS Word?
The Change Case function allows you to change the text case without having to retype it. It is the option in Microsoft word which allows us to change the case of words in the sheet. In addition, it is a command, under Font group, that converts lowercase letters to uppercase and uppercase letters to lowercase.
Change Case Option in MS Word
The following Case Options are available:
- Sentence case: Capitalizes the first letter of the first word in a sentence.
- lowercase: Makes all the letters smaller.
- UPPERCASE: Makes every letter UPPERCASE.
- Capitalize Each Word: Every word’s first letter is capitalize. This is good for headings or titles.
- tOGGLE cASE: This makes the first letter of each word smaller and all the other letters bigger.
Where is the change case command in word?
The change case command in word, cab be found in the Font group on the Home tab. Click the arrow that points down next to the “Change Case” button. It shows the menu for text case. Finally, right-click the case you want to use.
What is Title case in MS Word?
Title case means that every first letter of the word is capitalized, except for small words like articles and short prepositions. Further, only the most important words are capitalized, while the rest are written in lowercase.
In addition, the title case is often used for headlines as well, like in newspapers, essays, and blogs. It is also called “headline style” because it is often used for headlines. MS Word Tutorial for Beginners, for example.
What is sentence case in MS Word?
Sentence case is a capitalization style where only words that are capitalized are the first word of a sentence and proper nouns. Then, the rest of the words are written in lowercase.
How To Change Case in Microsoft Word
Here are the steps you need to take to change the case in Microsoft Word.
- Step 1: Choose the text you want to change.
- Step 2: If you choose Sentence Case, the text will be changed to Sentence Case.
- Step 3: Choose the lowercase option to change the text to lowercase.
- Step 4:Choose UPPERCASE if you want the text to be changed to all capital letters.
- Step 5. If you choose the Capitalize Each Word option, each word in the text will be capitalized.
- Step 6: Choose tOGGLE cASE if you want the text to be changed to Toggle Case.
Change Case in Word Shortcut
Here are the keyboard shortcut keys that is the fastest and most effective way to use the Change Case features:
- Choose the text that needs to be changed.
- By pressing SHIFT + F3, you can quickly switch between other cases.
Summary
In summary, we’ve talked about how to change case in Microsoft Word as well as what those terms mean. In addition, we know the different cases option available in Microsoft Word. We also gain insight into changing cases options step by step.
We hope this tutorial helps you as you plan to create a document in MS Word.
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Do you ever wonder how to change the text case after you have typed? By default Office applications like Word uses the sentence case for writing with first letter as capital. However, you can easily change the text case in all Office applications. In this article, we will explain how to do that using builtin option as well as with other tools.
Related: How to insert dividers in Word quickly?
Default Text Case Usage
Word, PowerPoint and Outlook apps will use the backstage AutoFormat and AutoCorrect settings to correct the text cases.
- For example, launch Word and go to “File >
Options” menu. - Click on the “AutoCorrect Options…” button under
the “Proofing” section. - You can change the options under AutoFormat,
AutoCorrect and AutoFormat As You Type tabs.
Some of the useful options are to capitalize the first
letter of the sentence and correct accidental usage of capital letters.
Manually Changing Text Cases
The auto correct and auto formatting will not help to convert already written sentences to different cases. Let us say, someone sent you an email with Word attachment containing content with all capital letters. If you are embarrassed to read with capital cases, you can simply convert the content into readable sentences case with few clicks.
Change Text Case in Word
Word has many options for changing text cases compared to
other Office applications.
- Open your document and select the text you want
to convert the case. - Under the “Home” tab, click on the “Change Case”
icon showing as Aa. - It will show the dropdown and allow you to
change cases in different manner.
Explanation of Different Text Cases
- Sentence case – this will change the first letter of all sentences to capital and leave other cases in small. This is a default case used in general for writing text content.
- Lowercase – convert all letters to small case letters.
- Uppercase – convert all letters to upper case letters.
- Capitalize each word – only capitalizes the first letter in each word of the selected text.
- Half-width – convert the text width to half, generally not applicable for many of the standard fonts.
- Full-width – convert the text into a full-width font style by justifying the content to full-width.
Related: How to create eBook from Word document?
Typing with Small Caps and All Caps
In addition to the above text cases, you can also type the
text in small caps or all caps (all uppercase) from the font settings dialog.
- Select the text and press “Control + D”. Alternatively,
you can click on the small arrow in the “Font” group under “Home” tab. - This will open Font dialog where you can check “Small
caps” option and click ‘OK”. - Now, you can type with small caps.
- Similarly, you can check “All caps” to start
typing in capital letters. However, you can simply do this by turning on the
Caps Lock key on your keyboard.
There are few problems in using this method:
- You manually need to disable the check boxes
again to go back to normal typing mode. - You cannot convert small caps text into any
other format.
Example with Different Text Cases
Below is an example of different text cases in Word:
| Sample Sentence | Type |
| This is a sentence with sentence case. | Sentence case |
| this is a sentence with all lowercase. | Lowercase |
| THIS IS A SENTENCE WITH ALL UPPERCASE. | Uppercase |
| This Sentence Is Capitalized With Each Word. | Capitalize each word |
| tHIS IS an EXAmPLE OF UsING TOgGLE CAsE SENTENCE. | Toggle case |
| This is a half-width sentence. | Half-width |
| Ｔｈｉｓ ｉｓ ａ ｆｕｌｌ－ｗｉｄｔｈ ｓｅｎｔｅｎｃｅ． | Full-width |
| HERE IS AN ALL SMALL CAPS SENTENCE. | Small caps |
| HERE IS AN ALL CAPS SENTENCE. | All caps |
Keyboard shortcut: You can select the text and press “Shift + F3” to toggle the text case between upper, lower and capitalize each word options.
Change Text Case in Outlook
In outlook, you cannot change the case when reading the emails
as it will be in a read mode. However, you can change the text case in
following ways:
- When creating a new email or calendar entry.
- By replying to the email and change the case.
Go to “Format Text” menu and click on the “Change Case” icon. You will have similar options like Word to change the text.
If you the option is greyed out then click on the HTML or Rich Text option in the beside “Format” group.
Change Text Case in PowerPoint
PowerPoint also has similar option like Word. When you are in the textbox, go to “Home” menu and click on the “Change Case” icon to select the option from the dropdown. However, we do not see half and full-width options in PowerPoint.
Change Text Case in Excel
Excel is completely a different application, as it is not meant for word processing. However, you can use predefined functions to change the text case.
- Proper(text) – converts the text by capitalizing
each word. - Upper(text) – converts the text into uppercase.
- Lower(text) – converts the text into lowercase.
You should refer the original cell value in one of the above
functions to convert them accordingly. For example, below is the screenshot
from Excel converting the cell values B2, B3 and B4 to proper, upper and lower
case respectively.
Text case changing also works on Office 365 in Mac as explained above.
Different Language Other than English
Now that you may have one question – what happens when using different language other than English? As far as we have checked, nothing happens, as most of the languages do not have upper and lower cases separately.
Text Case Changer Tool
If you have lot of text content to change the case online then try our free text case changer tool. Simply, copy paste the text and select the option to convert.
The above tool also helps you to count the number of words and characters in a document. It will dynamically count and show the result when you enter text in the input box.