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: Turning Off Automatic Capitalization.

Turning Off Automatic Capitalization

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 13, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

As you busily enter data into a worksheet, you may have noticed that periodically Excel will second-guess what you are doing and capitalize words for you. In general, Excel does this when it thinks you are starting a new sentence. (And, it assumes that the beginning of a cell is always the beginning of a sentence.)

If you find yourself undoing Excel's decisions on this issue quite a bit, you can turn off the feature completely by following these steps:

  1. Choose AutoCorrect Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the AutoCorrect dialog box. (To display the AutoCorrect dialog box in Excel 2007, click the Office button and then click Excel Options. Click Proofing, and then click AutoCorrect Options.)
  2. Make sure the AutoCorrect tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The AutoCorrect tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.

  3. Clear the Capitalize First Letter of Sentences check box.
  4. Click on OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3366) 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: Turning Off Automatic Capitalization.

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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