Hong Life CalculatorsUnderstanding the capital case converter — concept and principle
Capital Case, also called Start Case, capitalises the first letter of every word, short words included. This converter applies it to any text, handles apostrophes, hyphens and numbers sensibly, and can either keep the remaining letters as typed or lowercase them to fix text typed in capitals. It reports how many words and characters changed.
How it is calculated
A word starts at a letter that does not follow another letter, a digit or an apostrophe.
- That first letter is changed to upper case.
- Option 1: other letters stay as typed (keeps NASA, iPhone, McDonald).
- Option 2: other letters become lower case (fixes TEXT TYPED IN CAPITALS).
- Letters are converted with Unicode's default case mappings.
Words counted = whitespace-separated groups containing a letter or digit.
The principle
The tricky part of capitalising words is deciding where a word begins. Treating every letter after a space as a word start would miss hyphenated parts, while treating every letter after any non-letter would wrongly capitalise "it's" as "It'S". The rule used here counts a letter as a word start only if the character before it is not a letter, digit or apostrophe. So both halves of "well-known" are capitalised, "it's" keeps a lowercase s, and "3rd" stays as it is because the letter follows a digit.
Worked example
Default input: "the lord of the rings: the return of the king. it's a well-known story", keeping other letters as typed.
- Words starting after a space or the start of text: the, lord, of, the, rings, the, return, of, the, king, it's, a, well, story.
- "known" also starts a word, because it follows a hyphen.
- Result: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. It's A Well-Known Story.
- Words capitalised = 15; characters changed = 15.
- Words in the text = 14 (well-known counts as one word).
How to read the result
Capital Case is common for headings in user interfaces, file names and some labels. It differs from title case used in book and article titles, which leaves short words such as "of", "the" and "a" in lower case unless they start the title. If your text was typed in all capitals, choose the lowercase option first so that only first letters remain capitalised.
Common mistakes
- Using Capital Case where a style guide requires title case or sentence case.
- Lowercasing acronyms and brand names such as NASA or iPhone with the second option.
- Expecting the converter to know proper-noun rules like "McDonald".
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Capital Case and Title Case?
Capital Case capitalises every word; Title Case keeps short words like "of" and "the" lowercase.
Why isn't "It'S" produced?
A letter after an apostrophe is not treated as a new word.
Does it work with other alphabets?
Yes, for scripts with upper and lower case; Korean has no case, so it stays as typed.
How are hyphenated words handled?
Each part after a hyphen is capitalised: "Well-Known".
Sources: The Unicode Standard 15.1, §3.13 Default Case Algorithms, as applied by ECMAScript String.prototype.toUpperCase/toLowerCase