Sentence Case vs Title Case: Which to Use and When

Sentence case puts a capital letter on the first word and on proper nouns. Nothing else gets one. Title Case puts a capital on every important word in a heading. Short words like "a", "the" and "of" stay in lowercase. Capitalized Case is the simple version. Every word starts with a capital, with no exceptions. The right choice depends on where the text will appear. It also depends on which style guide, if any, you follow.

The three styles side by side

The quickest way to see the difference is to write one heading in all three styles.

Style	Example	Rule in one line
Sentence case	How to write a cover letter for a job in London	Capital on the first word and proper nouns only
Title Case	How to Write a Cover Letter for a Job in London	Capital on major words; short articles, conjunctions and prepositions stay lowercase
Capitalized Case	How To Write A Cover Letter For A Job In London	Capital on the first letter of every word
Upper case	HOW TO WRITE A COVER LETTER FOR A JOB IN LONDON	Every letter is a capital; use it rarely

Look at "London". Sentence case and Title Case agree on it because it is a proper noun. They disagree on "write", "cover", "letter" and "job". Title Case and Capitalized Case disagree on "to", "a", "for" and "in". Those small words cause almost all the arguments. They are also the reason style guides exist.

Upper case is in the table because it is still common in print headlines, labels and warnings. On screen it feels like shouting and is slower to scan. Most digital style guides keep it for short labels such as "NEW" or "SALE". If you need it, the Upper Case Converter does it without retyping.

What the style guides say about small words

All the major guides agree on the basics. Give a capital to the first word, the last word, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns. They also agree that articles (a, an, the) stay lowercase in the middle of a heading. The same goes for the joining words and, but, or, for and nor. The guides disagree about prepositions. They also disagree about how long a word must be to get a capital.

Guide	Prepositions	Length rule	"Between" and "Through"	"Up" in "Set Up"
AP Stylebook	Lowercase if three letters or fewer	Capital on any word of four or more letters	Between, Through	Up (two letters, but many AP editors give it a capital when it is part of a verb)
Chicago Manual of Style	Lowercase, however long	No length rule	between, through	Up (it is part of a phrasal verb, so it counts as a verb)
APA Publication Manual (7th)	Lowercase if three letters or fewer	Capital on any word of four or more letters	Between, Through	Up (capital on both parts of a hyphenated or phrasal major word)
MLA Handbook	Lowercase, however long	No length rule	between, through	Up (adverb)

So one heading can be correct in two forms. "A Guide to Working Between Teams" is right in AP and APA. "A Guide to Working between Teams" is right in Chicago and MLA. Neither is wrong. They follow different rulebooks. What is wrong is mixing the two inside one publication.

Here are a few more points that catch people out:

• Short verbs are not small words. "Is", "Are", "Be", "Go", "Do" and "Was" are verbs. They get a capital in every guide. "Why Sleep Is Good for You" is correct. "Why Sleep is Good for You" is the most common headline error.
• Pronouns get a capital. "It", "We", "Us", "My" and "Our" all take one, even though they are short.
• Words that start a clause get a capital. "If", "As", "Than", "That", "When" and "Because" count as major words.
• "To" before a verb is lowercase in Chicago and MLA ("How to Bake Bread"). It is also lowercase in AP because it has only two letters.
• Hyphenated words. Chicago and APA give a capital to both halves when both are major words ("Long-Term Planning", "Self-Service Checkout"). After a prefix, the second part stays lowercase ("Re-entry", "Anti-inflammatory"). AP usually gives the second part a capital only if it would get one on its own.
• After a colon. Chicago and APA give a capital to the first word after a colon in a heading. Most editors do the same after an em dash.

The Title Case Converter applies these rules for you. It also handles the short-verb and first-and-last-word rules. A plain "capitalise every word" function gets those wrong.

When sentence case is the better choice

Sentence case has taken over most digital writing. The reasons are practical, not just fashion.

It is easier to read. We recognise words partly by their shape. Capitals flatten the parts of letters that stick up and down, and those parts make a word easy to spot. So a heading full of capitals is scanned a little more slowly. One capital at the start gives the eye a place to begin. It does not clutter the rest.

It makes proper nouns easy to see. Take "Working With Apple And Google In Europe". The capitals tell you nothing. In "Working with Apple and Google in Europe", the capitals mark the company names and the continent, and nothing else. Technical help pages rely on this a lot. A capital on "Sheets" tells the reader it is the Google product, not a stack of paper.

It needs no rulebook. Anyone can use it correctly without learning a list of prepositions. That matters when dozens of people write headings for the same product or website.

For these reasons, sentence case is the usual choice for:

• App and website text. Google's Material Design, Microsoft's Writing Style Guide, Shopify's Polaris and the GOV.UK design system all ask for sentence case. It applies to buttons, menus, labels and dialogue titles. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines are the main exception. They still use Title Case for English menu items and buttons.
• Email subject lines. "Your order has shipped" sounds like a person wrote it. "Your Order Has Shipped" sounds like a template. Sentence case also avoids the small-word arguments.
• Web headings on most sites. UK news sites, most government sites and most software marketing pages use sentence case for H2 and H3 headings. Some still use headline style for the page title.
• Social media posts and anything chatty.

Suppose a document has headings in the wrong style. The Sentence Case Converter will make everything lowercase except the first word of each sentence. Check the proper nouns afterwards. No tool can know that "Reading" is a town and not an activity.

When Title Case is the better choice

Headline style feels formal and important. It is the usual choice for:

• Titles of works. Books, films, albums, reports, academic papers and chapters are nearly always in headline style in English. This is true whichever guide you follow.
• Document and page titles. This means the H1 of a page or the cover title of a report. The headings inside can still use sentence case. Mixing the two this way is common and fine, as long as you do it the same way every time.
• US newspaper and magazine headlines. Most American publications use it. British papers mostly use sentence case. If you write for both markets, follow the house style of each one.
• Menu labels and product names. "Pricing", "Help Centre" and "Sign In" often get capitals because they work like names, not sentences.
• Reference lists where the style asks for it. APA, for example, uses sentence case for article titles in the reference list. It uses Title Case for journal names. So one citation can hold both.

Where Capitalized Case fits

Capitalized Case is also called start case or "capitalise each word". It ignores the small-word rules. A spreadsheet PROPER() function gives you this style. So does the "Capitalize Each Word" command in a word processor. Strict editors say it is wrong for headings. Still, it has good uses:

• Names and addresses. "Flat 2, Rose Cottage, Mill Lane" has no small words to worry about, so Capitalized Case is just right. People most often use it to clean a mailing list that came in all capitals.
• Short brand phrases and taglines where the designer wants each word to carry equal weight.
• Song titles on some streaming services and other systems where a machine tidied up the catalogue.
• A first pass before editing. Give every word a capital, then fix the few small words by hand. For a short list of headings this is often faster than checking the rules.

The Capitalized Case Converter does this in one click. Use it when every word really should start with a capital. Avoid it for headings that follow a formal style guide. "The Art Of War" and "A Tale Of Two Cities" look wrong to anyone who reads a lot.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

These errors show up every day in headlines, slide decks and email subjects. Each one is easy to fix once you know about it.

1. Lowercase "is", "are" and "be". They are verbs. Write "What Is a Mortgage?" not "What is a Mortgage?".
2. A capital on "the" or "a" in the middle. "Return of The Jedi" is wrong unless "The Jedi" is itself a name. "Return of the Jedi" is correct.
3. Forgetting the last word. "What Are You Waiting For" ends in a preposition. The last word always gets a capital, so "For" is correct.
4. A capital after every hyphen. "E-Mail", "Re-Entry" and "Co-Ordinate" look odd. Most guides keep the second part lowercase after a prefix.
5. Mixing styles in one list. Say a menu has "Account Settings", "Billing history" and "Help". It tells the user that nobody checked. Pick one style and use it for all three.
6. Thinking sentence case means no capitals for proper nouns. "how to use google sheets" is not sentence case. It is just lowercase. Sentence case still puts capitals on Google and Sheets.
7. Letting a tool guess at acronyms. Any converter will turn "NASA" into "Nasa" when it switches to sentence case. Keep a list of acronyms and product names, and check them after you convert.

A simple decision rule

You may have no style guide to follow. In that case, this default matches most modern publishing:

• Page and document titles: Title Case.
• Headings and subheadings inside the page: sentence case.
• Buttons, menus, labels, form fields and error messages: sentence case, unless you build for Apple platforms.
• Email subject lines and notifications: sentence case.
• Names, addresses and list data: Capitalized Case.
• Warnings, short badges and print headlines: upper case, kept to a few words.

Whatever you choose, write it down. Add one line to your brand or help guide, such as "Headings use sentence case; page titles use Chicago-style Title Case". That saves every future argument about whether "with" gets a capital.

A note on language

These rules are for English. German gives a capital to every noun in normal text, so it has no headline style like ours. French, Spanish and most other European languages use sentence case for titles of works. They would find "La Vie En Rose" with capitals strange. If your site or product is translated, do not run a Title Case converter on the translations.

Where to go next

Paste any heading into the Title Case Converter to see it in headline style with the small-word rules applied. Switch to the Sentence Case Converter for app and web headings. Use the Capitalized Case Converter for names and addresses. All three run in your browser, and nothing you paste is uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

Is "is" capitalised in title case?

Yes. "Is" is a verb, and every style guide gives verbs a capital in a heading, however short they are. The same goes for "are", "be", "was", "do" and "go". The words that stay lowercase are articles (a, an, the), the joining words and, but, or, for and nor, and short prepositions. Writing "What is a Mortgage?" with a lowercase "is" is one of the most common headline mistakes. Check for it before you publish.

What is the difference between title case and capitalised case?

Title Case follows rules. It gives capitals to major words and keeps small words such as "of", "the" and "and" lowercase, unless they start or end the heading. Capitalized Case gives a capital to the first letter of every word, so "The Art of War" becomes "The Art Of War". Use Capitalized Case for names and addresses. Use Title Case for headings, book titles and anything under a formal style guide.

Should email subject lines use sentence case or title case?

Sentence case is the safer choice for most email. It sounds like a person wrote it. It avoids arguments about which short words get a capital. It also matches how most people write in their inbox. Title Case can work for formal news, or for newsletters with a magazine feel. It also works if your brand style uses it everywhere else. Whichever you pick, use the same style in every message you send.

Do AP and Chicago style capitalise prepositions differently?

Yes, and this is the main difference between them. AP gives a capital to any word of four or more letters, so "With", "From", "Between" and "Through" all get one. Chicago keeps prepositions lowercase however long they are, so "between" and "through" stay lowercase in the middle of a heading. APA uses the AP four-letter rule, and MLA follows Chicago. Both ways are correct. Just pick one and stick to it.

Should buttons and menu items use title case?

It depends on the platform. Google's Material Design, Microsoft, Shopify and the GOV.UK design system all ask for sentence case on buttons, menus and labels. So you write "Save changes", not "Save Changes". Apple's Human Interface Guidelines still use Title Case for English buttons and menu items. If you build for one platform, follow its guide. If you build for the web, sentence case is the more common modern choice.

Is the last word of a heading always capitalised?

Yes. In Title Case the first and last words always get a capital, even when they are articles or prepositions that would otherwise stay lowercase. "What Are You Waiting For" ends with a capital "For", and "A Tale of Two Cities" starts with a capital "A". This rule holds in AP, Chicago, APA and MLA. Chicago and APA also give a capital to the first word after a colon in a heading.