Title Case Myths: What to Capitalize in a Headline

Title case means capitalizing the important words in a headline while keeping short articles, conjunctions and prepositions like "a", "and", "of" and "the" lowercase, unless they're the first or last word. "The Lord of the Rings" is title case; "The Lord Of The Rings" is not. A converter gets you most of the way, but a few edge cases still need a human eye.

Let's clear up the most common misunderstandings.

Myth 1: Title case means every word starts with a capital

That's "start case", and it's what you get from many spreadsheet functions and quick scripts. Proper title case, as used by AP, Chicago and APA, lowercases minor words in the middle of a title. Compare:

• Start case: A Tale Of Two Cities
• Title case: A Tale of Two Cities

The Title Case Converter keeps these words lowercase when they appear mid-title: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, in, nor, of, on, or, per, so, the, to, up, via, vs, yet. Every other word gets a capital first letter.

Myth 2: Short words are always lowercase

Not at the edges. The first and last word of a title are always capitalized, even if they're on the list:

• "of mice and men" → Of Mice and Men
• "what are you waiting for" → What Are You Waiting For

Note that "Are" and "You" are capitalized too. Short isn't the same as minor: verbs, pronouns and adverbs are always capitalized, whatever their length.

Myth 3: All style guides agree

They agree on the basics and disagree on details. The biggest difference is longer prepositions:

Word	AP and APA	Chicago	This converter
with	With	with	With
from	From	from	From
about	About	about	About
of / in / to	of / in / to	of / in / to	of / in / to

AP and APA capitalize any word of four letters or more; Chicago lowercases prepositions regardless of length. The converter's list of short words matches AP for these cases. If you follow Chicago, lowercase "with", "from", "about" and similar prepositions by hand.

Myth 4: A converter understands grammar

It doesn't, and phrasal verbs show why. "Up" is on the minor-word list, so "how to set up your router" becomes "How to Set up Your Router". Here, "up" is part of the verb "set up", and most style guides would capitalize it: "How to Set Up Your Router". The same applies to "Log In", "Sign Up" and "Turn On".

Myth 5: Acronyms and brand names survive

Not in this tool. It lowercases the whole line before capitalizing, so:

Input	Output	Fix to
NASA unveils new iPhone app for kids	Nasa Unveils New Iphone App for Kids	NASA Unveils New iPhone App for Kids
working with sql in 2026: a primer	Working With Sql in 2026: a Primer	Working With SQL in 2026: A Primer

That's a deliberate trade-off: it fixes headlines pasted in ALL CAPS, which would otherwise stay shouty. Just scan the result for acronyms and brands like iPhone, eBay or macOS.

Myth 6: The word after a colon follows the normal rules

Most style guides treat a subtitle after a colon as a fresh start and capitalize its first word, even if it's "a" or "the". The converter treats it as a mid-title word, so "star wars: a new hope" becomes "Star Wars: a New Hope". Capitalize that "A" yourself.

Hyphenated compounds are another manual check: "step-by-step" comes out as "Step-by-step". Chicago would write "Step-by-Step"; AP accepts either in many cases.

How to convert a headline to title case

1. Paste one title per line into Your text. Each line is converted separately, so you can do a whole list of blog post titles at once.
2. Read the result in Title Case text. It updates as you type.
3. Fix acronyms, brand names, phrasal verbs and post-colon words using the checks above.
4. Click Copy, or Download to save the list.

Nothing is uploaded; conversion happens in your browser.

If you need sentence case, camelCase or another style instead, the Text Case Converter has 12 options. To check that a headline fits a search result or a social card, paste it into the Character Counter.

FAQ

Should I use title case or sentence case for blog headlines?

Either is fine as long as you're consistent. News sites and many tech companies prefer sentence case because it feels less formal; books, magazines and many marketing sites use title case.

Are "is" and "are" capitalized in title case?

Yes. They're verbs, and verbs are always capitalized in title case, no matter how short. "It" and "Be" are capitalized for the same reason.

What about numbers at the start of a title?

They stay as they are, and the first word after the number is capitalized normally: "the 10 best books of all time" becomes "The 10 Best Books of All Time".

Paste your headlines into the Title Case Converter and then give them a quick edge-case scan.