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In title case you capitalise the first and last words and every "major" word (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns), and keep short "minor" words like a, and, of, the and to lowercase. The style guides disagree mainly about prepositions: AP capitalises any word of four or more letters ("With", "From"), while Chicago keeps every preposition lowercase. The free case converter does the heavy lifting in one click; you then tidy a few edge cases by hand.

The rules every style agrees on

Whichever guide you follow, these hold:

1. Capitalise the first word of the title, even if it's "a" or "the".
2. Capitalise the last word, even if it's short: "What Are You Waiting For".
3. Capitalise nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, however short. That includes little verbs and pronouns people often get wrong: Is, Be, Are, It, He, Its.
4. Lowercase the articles a, an and the in the middle of a title.
5. Lowercase the short coordinating conjunctions and, but, or and nor in the middle.
6. Lowercase "to" when it's part of a verb, as in "How to Cook Rice".

So "why it is never too late to learn" becomes "Why It Is Never Too Late to Learn". Every word is capitalised except to, because It and Is are a pronoun and a verb.

Where AP and Chicago differ

Question	AP style	Chicago style
Prepositions	Lowercase if three letters or fewer (in, on, at, for); capitalise four or more (With, From, Into, Over)	Lowercase all prepositions, whatever their length (with, from, through, between)
Conjunctions	Lowercase if three letters or fewer; capitalise four or more	Lowercase and, but, for, or, nor; capitalise others such as If, Because, Although
"As"	Lowercase (fewer than four letters)	Always lowercase

A few titles written both ways:

AP	Chicago
Gone With the Wind	Gone with the Wind
How to Deal With Stress at Work	How to Deal with Stress at Work
A Guide to Living Through the Winter	A Guide to Living through the Winter
The Case for Working From Home	The Case for Working from Home

One more thing about AP: news organisations that follow AP usually write their headlines in sentence case ("Rain expected across the north tomorrow") and keep title case for the names of books, films, songs and other works. Blogs and businesses that say "AP title case" generally mean the four-letter rule above.

APA style, common in academic papers, uses a rule close to AP's: capitalise words of four letters or more, plus all major words, and lowercase minor words of three letters or fewer.

The tricky cases

Phrasal verbs. In "Log In to Your Account", In is part of the verb "log in", not a preposition, so it's capitalised in both styles. Likewise "Set Up", "Back Up", "Turn Off".

Hyphenated words. Capitalise the main parts: "Well-Known", "Long-Term", "Self-Driving". Chicago keeps articles, prepositions and short conjunctions inside a compound lowercase, as in "State-of-the-Art", and most writers follow the same habit.

Subtitles. Chicago and APA treat the first word after a colon as the start of a subtitle and capitalise it, and most writers do the same: "Travel Guide: The Best Beaches in Goa".

Acronyms and brand names. Keep them as they are: "CV", "NASA", "PDF", "iPhone".

Numbers. A title can start with a numeral, as in "10 Tips for Writing a CV That Gets Noticed". That is a pronoun here, so it's capitalised.

How the case converter handles title case

Paste your title into the free case converter and click Title Case. It:

• capitalises the first and last word of each line;
• keeps these short words lowercase in the middle: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, en, for, if, in, nor, of, on, or, per, the, to, v, vs, via;
• capitalises every other word, including both parts of hyphenated words.

That list lines up closely with AP-style titles: "with", "from" and "into" are capitalised. For Chicago, lowercase any longer prepositions afterwards.

Because it lowercases the text first, check these by hand after converting:

1. Acronyms come out as "Cv", "Nasa" or "Pdf". Put the capitals back.
2. The word after a colon stays lowercase if it's a minor word ("Guide: the Best"). Capitalise it.
3. Phrasal verbs such as "Log in" keep the small word lowercase. Capitalise it if it's part of the verb.
4. Hyphenated phrases such as "State-Of-The-Art" get every part capitalised. Lowercase the small words inside.

For most everyday headlines none of these come up, and one click is all you need. If you'd rather capitalise every single word, use Capitalized Case instead.

Title case or sentence case?

Many websites, apps and news sites now prefer sentence case for headings: only the first word and names are capitalised. It's easier to apply consistently and reads a little less formally. Title case still suits book and film titles, formal reports, and brands that already use it. Pick one and use it everywhere on the same page or document.

If you're fixing text that came in all capitals rather than writing a title, see how to change text to uppercase or lowercase. And if your headline has to fit a limit, such as about 60 characters for a page title in search results, check it with the free character counter, or see the social media character limits guide.

Convert your title now

Paste your headline into the free case converter, click Title Case, then fix any acronyms or subtitles. Your text stays on your device.