Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Specifying Proper Case.

Specifying Proper Case

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 5, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


If you receive information from others as an odd assortment of upper- and lowercase characters, you may want to put the PROPER worksheet function to work for you. This function converts text so that the first letters of any words are uppercase and everything else is lowercase. Actually, what it does is make everything lowercase except any letters that do not follow another letter. Thus, any letters following spaces, punctuation, or numbers would be converted to uppercase.

As an example, if cell D4 contains "THIS IS MY TEXT", you could use the following formula in cell E4:

=PROPER(D4)

The result is that cell E4 will contain "This Is My Text".

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2156) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Specifying Proper Case.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Saving Everything

Need to force users to save their work? It may be as simple as implementing a couple of macros that get a bit more ...

Discover More

Getting User Input in a Dialog Box

Want to get some input from the users of your workbooks? You can do it by using the InputBox function in a macro.

Discover More

Compound Page Numbering

Simple page numbering is easy to add to your documents. More complex numbering (such as two numbering schemes in the same ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Checking for Text

Need to figure out if a particular cell contains text? You can use the ISTEXT function to easily return this bit of trivia.

Discover More

Converting Codes to Characters

Character codes are the numeric values used, by a computer, to signify various alphanumeric characters. You can use the ...

Discover More

Cleaning Text

You can use the CLEAN worksheet function to remove any non-printable characters from a cell. This can come in handy when ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is seven more than 3?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.