Title case capitalises the first letter of the major words in a heading, while leaving short articles, conjunctions, and prepositions lowercase unless they are the first or last word. It is the standard style for headlines, book titles, and headings.

How do AP and Chicago styles differ?

Both lowercase articles and short conjunctions. The difference is prepositions: Chicago lowercases all prepositions regardless of length, while AP lowercases only those of three letters or fewer and capitalises longer prepositions like Between and Through.

Are the first and last words always capitalised?

Yes. In both AP and Chicago style the first and last words of a title are always capitalised, even if they would normally be a lowercase minor word like a, the, or of.

Does it handle hyphenated words?

Yes. Each part of a hyphenated compound is capitalised, so well-being becomes Well-Being. This matches the common treatment in both major style guides.

Is my text sent to a server?

No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing you type is uploaded or stored.

What is the Title Case Converter?

Convert headlines and titles to proper title case using AP or Chicago style rules. Capitalises major words plus the first and last word, while keeping short articles, conjunctions, and prepositions lowercase. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Title Case Converter

Name: Title Case Converter
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Title case is the capitalisation style used for headlines, book titles, and section headings. This converter applies the rules from the AP and Chicago style guides, capitalising the major words and the first and last word while keeping minor words lowercase.

How it works

The converter splits each line into words and decides the casing of each one:

The first and last words are always capitalised.
Major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on) are capitalised.
Minor words — articles like a, an, the; coordinating conjunctions like and, but, or; and prepositions — are kept lowercase in the middle of the title.

The style you pick changes which prepositions stay lowercase. Chicago lowercases every preposition, while AP capitalises prepositions of four or more letters. Choosing “Capitalise every word” turns off the minor-word list entirely.

AP vs Chicago: how they differ in practice

Both styles capitalise nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The difference centres on prepositions. Consider the title “A Guide to Writing for an Online Audience”:

Chicago style: “A Guide to Writing for an Online Audience” — to and for are lowercase because Chicago lowercases all prepositions.
AP style: “A Guide to Writing for an Online Audience” — same result here, because to and for are short. But in “A Handbook Between Colleagues” Chicago keeps between lowercase while AP capitalises it because it is four letters or more.

The practical impact shows up most in prepositions like between, through, above, across, and without. If you follow AP style, these get capitalised; if you follow Chicago, they stay lowercase.

Common words that trip people up

Word	Chicago	AP	Reason
`and`	lowercase	lowercase	coordinating conjunction
`but`	lowercase	lowercase	coordinating conjunction
`of`	lowercase	lowercase	short preposition
`through`	lowercase	Capitalised	preposition, 7 letters
`between`	lowercase	Capitalised	preposition, 7 letters
`is`	Capitalised	Capitalised	verb, always capitalised
`it`	Capitalised	Capitalised	pronoun, always capitalised
`to`	lowercase	lowercase	preposition, 2 letters

Worked example

The title the lord of the rings: return of the king becomes, in Chicago style, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King — note that the leading The is capitalised as the first word, while the interior of and the stay lowercase.

The title a night through the looking glass in AP style becomes A Night Through the Looking Glass — Through is capitalised because it is four letters under AP rules, while the stays lowercase.

Each line of a multi-line input is treated as its own title, so you can convert a whole list of headings at once. Paste your full heading list, pick your style guide, and copy all the corrected titles in one action.