One of the most basic grammar rules is that “should capitalize the first letter of a sentence”. However, this rule is often forgotten when it comes to data entry in Excel. Capitalizing the first letter of each cell in a column can make your data much easier to read and understand. It can also help to prevent errors since Excel will often auto-correct words that are entered in all lowercase.
There are two different ways you can go about doing this.
- Capitalize First Letters Using Formula in Excel
- Capitalize First Letters Using Kutools in Excel
Let’s describe booths ways and learn how to capitalize first letters in excel with examples. For example, I use the below table, which has some employee names and mobile numbers.
1. Capitalize First Letters Using Formula in Excel
If you have a list of names or other text in which the first letter of each word is lowercase, and you want to change all of the first letters to uppercase, you can use the formula.
=PROPER(Cell Number)
Let’s apply the formula in my table.
Now select the row where you want to see the result to capitalize the first letters. Here I select row D2 and write the formula. When you write =PROPER, show the below this formula automatically. Just click on it.
Here also show this message.
Now put the cell number. Here my cell is B2, and the formula is
=PROPER(B2).
Press “Enter” and see the result.
Just click the formula cell and put it down to capitalize the first letters of the below cells.
All cells are copied and pasted into the formula. This way, you can capitalize the first letters in excel.
When I edit the B2 cell and D2, my formula cell is auto-updating. But here is a problem. Here capitalize the first letters of every word of the cell.
And it is not good to see for your sheet. Now, what can you do to capitalize the first word’s first letter in a cell? Because we know always capitalize the first letter of the first word in a sentence. And doing so makes your writing look more professional.
Here you get the solution to using this formula.
==UPPER(LEFT(cell name,1))&RIGHT(cell name, LEN(cell name)-1)
Select the row where you want to see the result and write the formula.
Press the “Enter” key and see the result.
Again drag down to copy and paste the formula for other cells.
2. Capitalize First Letters Using Kutools in Excel
If you have a list of text strings that need to have the first letter of each word capitalized, you can use the Kutools for Excel’s Change Case feature to quickly handle this task. First, you have to select the cells that you want to modify and click the Kutools.
To use the Kutools tool, select the cells that contain the text you want to change and click on the text tool.
Now click the text drop-down icon and click the Change Case option.
And then, choose the “proper case or Sentence case” option from the sub-menu as you want. Next, click the Apply and “Ok” buttons.
Here I choose the Sentence case to capitalize the first word’s first letter. And click the Apply and “Ok” buttons.
Now see the result.
With Kutools for Excel installed, you can use the Change Case tool to quickly and easily convert your text to proper case, upper case, or lower case. The Change Case tool can even help you randomize the case of your text.
