# Title Case Converter

> Convert a headline to real title case by the style guide you write for: AP, APA, Chicago, MLA, New York Times or Wikipedia. They disagree, and this shows how. Free.

- Canonical URL: https://www.zyff.app/tools/title-case-converter
- Status: working
- Price: free, no signup, no watermark
- Processing: runs on Zyff's servers; input is held in memory for the request and never stored

Zyff's title case converter applies a real style guide rather than a house rule, because the guides genuinely disagree about which short words stay lowercase and there is no single correct answer. AP capitalises words of four letters or more, so it writes Walking Through the Woods. Chicago lowercases prepositions regardless of length, giving Walking through the Woods. APA uses AP's four-letter threshold but always capitalises after a hyphen. MLA lowercases prepositions of any length. The New York Times and Wikipedia lists differ again. Pick the one you write for and the conversion follows it, on Zyff's servers, with acronyms and names like iPhone left intact.

## How to convert text to title case

1. **Paste your headline** — One title per line, or a whole list of them. Each line is capitalised independently, so a batch of headings comes back correct line by line.
2. **Pick the style guide** — AP, APA, Chicago, MLA, New York Times or Wikipedia. Each one's rule is described beside the picker, so the choice is informed rather than a guess at initials.
3. **Leave acronym preservation on** — It keeps ALL-CAPS terms and internally capitalised names as typed, so HTML stays HTML and iPhone does not come back as IPhone. This matters more in titles than anywhere else, because titles are short and one wrong word is obvious.
4. **Read the output and copy it** — The conversion updates as you type. Copy the result, or check the character count if the title has to fit a field.

## Features

- **Six style guides, not one**: AP, APA, Chicago, MLA, New York Times and Wikipedia. Most converters implement one unnamed rule and leave you to discover it disagrees with your editor.
- **The rule is shown, not hidden**: Selecting a guide describes what it does to prepositions, conjunctions and hyphens, so you can tell whether it is the one your publication uses.
- **Acronyms and names survive**: NASA, HTML, iPhone and macOS come back as typed rather than being flattened to Nasa, Html and IPhone.
- **First and last word always capitalised**: Every one of these guides capitalises the first and last word of a title whatever it is, including a short preposition. That is applied for you.
- **Batch by line**: Paste a hundred headings and each is title-cased on its own line. Useful for a nav, a changelog or a content plan.

## Specifications

| Property | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Style guides | AP, APA 7th, Chicago, MLA 9th, New York Times, Wikipedia |
| AP and APA threshold | Capitalise words of four letters or more |
| Chicago and MLA | Lowercase prepositions regardless of length |
| Hyphen handling | APA and MLA capitalise after a hyphen; AP and Chicago do not |
| Always capitalised | First and last word of the title, in every guide |
| Text limit | 100,000 characters per conversion, enforced on the server |

## Frequently asked questions

**What is title case?**

A capitalisation style for titles and headings in which significant words start with a capital letter and short function words — articles, coordinating conjunctions and (depending on the guide) prepositions — stay lowercase. It differs from capitalising every word, which is why Walking Through the Woods is title case and Walking Through The Woods is not.

**Which words are not capitalised in title case?**

All six guides here lowercase the articles a, an and the, and the coordinating conjunctions and, but, or, nor, for, so and yet, unless one opens or closes the title. Prepositions are where they split: AP and APA capitalise those of four letters or more, while Chicago and MLA lowercase prepositions whatever their length.

**What is the difference between AP and Chicago title case?**

Prepositions. AP capitalises words of four letters or more, so Through stays capitalised in Walking Through the Woods. Chicago lowercases prepositions regardless of length, giving Walking through the Woods. Both lowercase articles and coordinating conjunctions unless one is the first or last word, so short titles often come out identical.

**How is APA title case different from MLA?**

Two things. APA uses the four-letter threshold for prepositions like AP, so Working With AI keeps With capitalised, while MLA lowercases prepositions of any length and gives Working with AI. Both capitalise the word after a hyphen, so both write Step-By-Step where AP and Chicago write Step-by-step.

**Does it handle acronyms and brand names?**

Yes, with acronym preservation on — which is the default. Words that are already all capitals or internally capitalised are passed through as typed, so HTML, NASA, iPhone and macOS survive. Switch it off if you are deliberately normalising a title that arrived in all caps.

**Why not just capitalise every word?**

Because that is a different style, called capitalised case, and no major guide uses it for prose titles. It is available here as its own option if you want it — a lot of product UI does use it — but a headline set that way reads as machine-generated to anyone who edits copy for a living.

## Related tools

- [Case Converter](https://www.zyff.app/tools/case-converter): Title, Sentence, UPPER, lower, camelCase, snake_case.
- [Sentence Case Converter](https://www.zyff.app/tools/sentence-case-converter): Sentence case that keeps acronyms and skips abbreviations.
- [Word Counter](https://www.zyff.app/tools/word-counter): Count words, characters, sentences, reading time and readability.
- [URL Slug Generator](https://www.zyff.app/tools/slug-generator): Turn a headline into a clean, lowercase URL slug.