Uppercase to Lowercase: Change Capitals in Word and Docs

You pasted a block of text and everything is in capitals, or you need to change uppercase to lowercase across a long document, and retyping is not an option. This guide explains how to convert capital letters to lowercase and to title case in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, how to do the same with our online tool, and which sentence case rules you should follow so the result looks correct.

For the quick method, paste your text into the online text case converter and copy the result. For a broader introduction to case styles, see our complete guide to changing case and capital letters.

How to Change Uppercase to Lowercase in Microsoft Word

Word has a built-in command for this, and the exact wording of menus can vary slightly between versions.

1. Select the text you want to change.
2. On the Home tab, find the button labeled “Aa” in the font group, which is the Change Case menu.
3. Choose lowercase, UPPERCASE, Capitalize Each Word, Sentence case or tOGGLE cASE, depending on what you need.

A keyboard shortcut also exists on Windows. Select the text and press Shift and F3. Each press cycles through uppercase, lowercase and capitalized words. On a Mac, the shortcut can differ by keyboard and version, so the menu is the safest route.

How to Convert Capital Letters to Lowercase in Google Docs

Google Docs has the option in its menus.

1. Select your text.
2. Open the Format menu and choose Text.
3. Select Capitalization, then choose lowercase, UPPERCASE or Title Case.

Notice that this menu usually offers three choices, so for sentence case you may need to lowercase the text and then fix the first letters by hand, or use another tool. Menu names can change over time, so if you cannot find it, look under the Format menu.

Change Capital Letters to Lowercase With Our Tool

If you do not use Word or Docs, or you are working with text from a website, a chat or a spreadsheet, an online converter is faster because you do not need to open a document at all.

1. Open the change text case tool.
2. Paste the text in capitals.
3. Choose the style you want from the options on the page.
4. Copy the result and paste it back.

This route is useful for text that will end up in an email, a content management system, a social post or a code file. After copying, check names and acronyms. For another quick check, our word counter shows how long the converted text is.

How to Make Title Case Correctly

Title case is used for headlines, book titles and many page titles. The common pattern is the following:

• Capitalize the first and last word.
• Capitalize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns.
• Keep short articles, conjunctions and prepositions in lowercase, for example “a”, “and”, “of” and “in”, unless they start or end the title.

The catch is that style guides disagree. Some capitalize prepositions of four or more letters, and some capitalize every word. Neither choice is wrong. What matters is consistency, so pick one rule and use it for every heading on your site. Automatic title case buttons also make mistakes, such as capitalizing “and” or leaving a word that should be capitalized, so always read the result.

Sentence Case Rules You Should Follow

Sentence case is the style of normal writing, and it is the easiest to read. The rules are short:

1. Capitalize the first word of every sentence.
2. Capitalize proper nouns, such as names of people, cities, countries, companies and days.
3. Capitalize the pronoun “I”.
4. Keep acronyms in capitals, for example USA or FAQ.
5. Write everything else in lowercase.

When you convert a whole text to lowercase first, you remove all of these capitals, so you must add them back. That is the biggest weakness of one-click conversion, and the reason a quick proofread afterwards is necessary.

Common Mistakes When You Change Case

• Losing proper nouns: a name such as Sara or Cairo becomes sara or cairo.
• Breaking acronyms: HTML or PDF becomes html or pdf.
• Wrong title case: small words capitalized or important words left small.
• Using capitals for emphasis in long text: it hurts readability.
• Forgetting spelling: changing case does not repair spelling, so run a spell check as a last step.

Which Method Should You Use?

Use Word or Google Docs when the text already lives there, because the format stays in place. Use the online tool when the text comes from somewhere else or you want a fast result without opening a program. In both cases, treat the conversion as a first draft and finish with a quick read. You can find more writing helpers on our free tools page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the shortcut to change case in Word?

On Windows, select the text and press Shift and F3 to cycle through the case styles. The Change Case menu on the Home tab is the more dependable option on every system.

Does Google Docs have sentence case?

The capitalization menu commonly offers lowercase, uppercase and title case. For sentence case, convert to lowercase and restore the first letters yourself, or use an online converter and check the result.

Why does my converted text lose names?

A converter follows rules and does not know which words are names. After lowercasing, add the capitals back to names, places and acronyms.

Is title case the same as capitalizing every word?

Not always. Title case usually leaves small words like “of” and “the” in lowercase, while capitalizing every word is a different and simpler style. Choose one and stay consistent.