Converting Cells to Proper Case

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 31, 2026)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Have you ever run into people who insist on typing everything with the Caps Lock key on? In some worksheets, that may not be acceptable. Yet, there you are, with a worksheet full of text cells that are all in uppercase. How do you convert everything to upper- and lowercase, without the need to retype?

If you find yourself in this situation, the MakeProper macro may do the trick for you. It will examine a range of cells, which you select, and then convert any constants to what Excel refers to as "proper case." This simply means that when you are done, the first letter of each word in a cell will be uppercase; the rest will be lowercase. If a cell contains a formula, it is ignored.

Sub MakeProper()
    Dim rngSrc As Range
    Dim lMax As Long, lCtr As Long

    Set rngSrc = ActiveSheet.Range(ActiveWindow.Selection.Address)
    lMax = rngSrc.Cells.Count

    For lCtr = 1 To lMax
        If Not rngSrc.Cells(lCtr).HasFormula Then
            rngSrc.Cells(lCtr) = Application.Proper(rngSrc.Cells(lCtr))
        End If
    Next lCtr
End Sub

If you would rather convert all the text in the range into lowercase, you can instead use the following macro, MakeLower().

Sub MakeLower()
    Dim rngSrc As Range
    Dim lMax As Long, lCtr As Long

    Set rngSrc = ActiveSheet.Range(ActiveWindow.Selection.Address)
    lMax = rngSrc.Cells.Count

    For lCtr = 1 To lMax
        If Not rngSrc.Cells(lCtr).HasFormula Then
            rngSrc.Cells(lCtr) = LCase(rngSrc.Cells(lCtr))
        End If
    Next lCtr
End Sub

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2026) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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