Forcing Input to Uppercase

If you are developing a worksheet for others to use, you may want them to always enter information in uppercase. Excel provides a worksheet function that allows you to convert information to uppercase, but it doesn't apply as people are actually entering information. For instance, if someone enters information in cell B6, then the worksheet function can't be used for converting the information in B6 to uppercase.

Instead, you must use a macro to do your changing for you. When programming in VBA, you can force Excel to run a particular macro whenever anything is changed in a worksheet cell. The following macro can be used to convert all worksheet input to uppercase:

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
With Target
    If Not .HasFormula Then
        .Value = UCase(.Value)
    End If
End With
End Sub

For the macro to work, however, it must be entered in a specific place. Follow these steps to place the macro:

1. Display the VBA Editor by pressing Alt+F11.
2. In the Project window, at the left side of the Editor, double-click on the name of the worksheet you are using. (You may need to first open the VBAProject folder, and then open the Microsoft Excel Objects folder under it.)
3. In the code window for the worksheet, paste the above macro.
4. Close the VBA Editor.

Now anything (except formulas) that are entered into any cell of the worksheet will be automatically converted to uppercase. If you don't want everything converted, but only cells in a particular area of the worksheet, you can modify the macro slightly:

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not (Application.Intersect(Target, Range("A1:B10")) Is Nothing) Then
    With Target
        If Not .HasFormula Then
            .Value = UCase(.Value)
        End If
    End With
End If
End Sub

In this particular example, only text entered in cells A1:B10 will be converted; everything else will be left as entered. If you need to have a different range converted, specify that range in the second line of the macro.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2568) 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: Forcing Input to Uppercase.