Title Case Converter

You're writing a headline, naming a project, or finalizing a section heading, and you need it in title case. Sounds simple. It isn't — the rules differ between AP, Chicago, and APA, and people argue about whether "Of" should be capitalized in the middle of a title (it shouldn't, in most styles, but "Of" at the start of a title takes a capital).

The converter applies AP/Chicago title case rules: capitalize the first and last word, capitalize all major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns), keep articles (a, an, the), short prepositions (of, in, on), and conjunctions (and, but, or) lowercase unless they're the first or last word. Drop in your text, get the title-cased version. Edge cases — names with internal capitals like McDonald, hyphenated compounds, all-caps acronyms — are preserved correctly.

The rule details: AP style capitalizes prepositions of four letters or more (so "With" capitalized, "Of" lowercase). Chicago capitalizes prepositions of five letters or more by default but allows the editor to override. APA differs further by capitalizing all words of four or more letters, including prepositions. Both AP and Chicago always capitalize the first and last words regardless of part of speech. The converter defaults to AP/Chicago hybrid rules, which match most journalistic and editorial contexts. Hyphenated compounds: AP and Chicago both capitalize both halves of major-word hyphens ("Self-Help"); APA traditionally lowercases the second half ("Self-help"), though usage varies. The converter applies the AP/Chicago convention.

A worked example: input "the lord of the rings: a return to middle-earth". Output: "The Lord of the Rings: A Return to Middle-Earth". The leading article "The" capitalizes because it's the first word. "Lord" capitalizes as a noun. "of" lowercases as a short preposition mid-title. "the" lowercases as an article mid-title. "Rings" capitalizes as a noun. After the colon, "A" capitalizes (some styles also capitalize the first word after a colon as a rule). "Return" capitalizes. "to" lowercases. "Middle-Earth" capitalizes both halves as a hyphenated compound. The converter handles all of this correctly without you having to think about it.

Where automated title casing breaks down: proper nouns the converter doesn't recognize. "iphone" should output "iPhone" (a brand-specific capitalization), but the converter would produce "Iphone" because it doesn't know iPhone is a special case. Same for eBay, dSLR, et al. Pre-format these manually and the converter will preserve them; let the converter touch them and you'll get the wrong capitalization. Acronyms input in lowercase ("html") become "Html"; pre-format them in caps if you want HTML preserved. Edge cases like McDonald, von Trapp, and similar names with intentional internal capitalization need to be input that way; the converter respects existing capitalization for words where it would otherwise be uncertain. For consistent stylistic application across a publication, pair the converter with a manual review pass — automated casing handles 95% of the work; the remaining 5% needs human eyes.