How to capitalize the first letter of each word in Excel
Formula (Excel and Google Sheets)
=PROPER(A2)Use =PROPER(A2). It capitalizes the first letter of every word and lowercases the rest.
- Result on the example
- one result per row in
B2, filled down toB6 - Works in
- Every current version
- Google Sheets
- Same formula
See it work
The formula is already in B2, filled down to B6. Change any input and the result updates, or edit the formula to experiment.
How it works
PROPER treats any letter after a space or punctuation as the start of a word and capitalizes it, and lowercases every other letter. UPPER and LOWER convert the whole text.
=PROPER(A2)Result"Maria Lopez"
A2"maria lopez"The value in A2.
PROPER(A2)"Maria Lopez"PROPER: Capitalizes the first letter of each word.- text
A2"maria lopez"
- text
In Google Sheets
The same formula works in Google Sheets: =PROPER(A2). We ran it in Google Sheets mode on the same data and it returns the same results.
Other ways to do it
Each one was run on the same example sheet.
| Formula | Result | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&LOWER(MID(A2,2,LEN(A2))) | Maria lopez, James smith, Aiko tanaka…Different result | Capitalizes only the first letter of the whole text, like a sentence. "Maria lopez" instead of "Maria Lopez". |
Common mistakes
- PROPER capitalizes after apostrophes and hyphens too: "o'neil" becomes "O'Neil", which is right, but "don't" becomes "Don'T".
- Names like "McDonald" or "van der Berg" need manual fixes after PROPER.
Try it yourself
Same data, empty answer cell. Your formula is graded instantly, then re-checked on changed data, so a typed-in number won't pass.
Capitalize the first letter of each word
B2, convert the text to proper case (first letter of each word capitalized) and fill down to B6.Questions
How do I make text all caps?
Use =UPPER(A2). =LOWER(A2) makes it all lowercase.
Does Google Sheets have PROPER?
Yes, it works the same way.
Checked by running on 2026-10-29: every formula and result on this page was calculated by the Spreadsheet Practice formula engine, in both Excel and Google Sheets modes.