Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 15, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
I can't tell you the number of times that I've been feverishly typing away, without glancing up at my worksheet. I get in a "groove," and I keep typing away, figuring I will check things out when I get to the end of a row or a column. When I finally look up, I notice that I had the Caps Lock key selected, so all my normal text is in uppercase, and everything I wanted in upper case is in lowercase. This happened because I hit the Caps Lock key by mistake, and didn't notice the mistake until I'd already entered quite a bit of data.
Fortunately, Excel can catch this type of mistake for me—if I tell it to catch it. Follow these steps:
Figure 1. The AutoCorrect tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.
Now, if I type something in a cell and the first letter is lowercase and the rest of the letters are uppercase, Excel figures that I've got the Caps Lock key selected, and helpfully turns it off. It also corrects the capitalization of my text entry.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3304) 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: Correcting a Capital Mistake.
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