How to Capitalize First Letter of a Text String in Google Sheets (Quickest Method)

You can use the PROPER function to capitalize first letter of a text string in Google Sheets. It is a simple formula that is prebuilt in Google Sheets. It helps you make the first letter uppercase and the remaining letters lowercase.

If you need help changing the case of the text string that contains multiple words in the Google spreadsheet,

You have come to the right place!

In this article, we’ll discuss the quickest method of capitalizing the first letter of a text string in Google Sheets. This is a comprehensive guide where we will also discuss different scenarios like capitalizing all letters in the cell, so read this article until the end.

Overall, changing the text case in Google Sheets doesn’t have to be a daunting task if you know the correct functions like PROPER, UPPER, and LOWER.

If you are in a hurry, then select any of the particular scenarios that best fit you to jump to that section:

Explained – PROPER function in Google Sheets

PROPER function is the quickest method of capitalizing the first letter of each word from a cell. You only need to provide the cell reference to let this function do its magic.

The syntax looks something like the below,

=PROPER(text_to_capitalize)

Here, the “text_to_capitalize” plays a vital role and is self-explanatory. You can manually enter the words or select cell reference values like A1, A2, A3, etc.

1. Capitalize the first letter of each word of the text string in Google Sheets

PROPER is a powerful function in Google Sheets.

No matter how clumsy your text string looks, the PROPER function will convert the first letter to uppercase and the rest of the letters to lowercase.

Go to the desired cell in Google sheet and type “=proper“
From the pop-up, select the first option or press the “Tab” on your keyboard
Select cell reference (ex. A2) or manually input the word you wish to capitalize
Complete the bracket by pressing “)” on your keyboard
Press “Enter”

Another way to choose the PROPER function in Google Sheets is to click on the “Insert” button from the main menu and then select the “Function” from the dropdown, followed by “Text” and then “PROPER.

Insert > Function > Text > PROPER

Refer to the following screenshot,

2. Capitalize the first letter of the entire text string in Google Sheets

There isn’t any built-in function for capitalizing only the first letter of the text string that contains multiple words.

You need to create a custom formula using different functions available in Google Sheets.

Refer to the following screenshot, where we have the text string, “i am happy.” Our task is to obtain the output “I am happy.”

As mentioned earlier, we need to construct a custom formula to capitalize the first letter of the text string.

Let’s begin.

Step #1 – Identifying the first letter of the text string

You need to use the following function to identify the first letter.

=REGEXEXTRACT(text, regular_expression)

Note that to understand the above function, you should know regular_expression. Click here to read more about using regual_expressions in Google Sheets.

To use this formula, replace the “text” field with cell reference and regular_expression with”” ([A-Za-z]).*”“.

The final formula with “A2” as the cell reference will look like below,

=REGEXEXTRACT(A2,”([A-Za-z]).*”)

Step #2 – Change the first letter to uppercase

Now is the time to capitalize the first letter using the PROPER function.

The generic syntax is as below,

=PROPER(text_to_capitalize)

Here “text_to_capitalize” needs to be replaced with the first letter we found in the previous step using the formula “=REGEXEXTRACT(A2, “([A-Za-z]).*”).”

So after the replacement, it should look like below,

=PROPER(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,”([A-Za-z]).*”))

Step #3 – Replace the first lowercase letter of the text string with an uppercase letter

In this step, we’ll use the SUBSTITUTE function to make the first lowercase letter of the text string uppercase.

The generic syntax for the SUBSTITUTE function is as below,

=SUBSTITUTE(text_to_search, search_for, replace_with, [occurrence_number])

Here,

“text_to_spearch” needs to be replaced with a cell reference. In this case, “A2“
“search_for” needs to be replaced with “=REGEXEXTRACT(A2,”([A-Za-z]).*”)” to identify the first letter
“replace_with” needs to be replaced with “=PROPER(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,” ([A-Za-z]).*”))” to capitalize the first letter of the text string
Always put “1” in the place of “[occurrence_number].”

Finally, your formula will look like below,

=SUBSTITUTE(A2,REGEXEXTRACT(A2,”([A-Za-z]).*”),UPPER(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,”([A-Za-z]).*”)),1)

3. Capitalize all the letters of the text string in Google Sheets

You can use the UPPER function in Google Sheets to convert all the letters of the text string to uppercase.

The UPPER function works very similar to the PROPER function, all you need to do is provide the cell reference.

The generic syntax for the UPPER function is as below,

=UPPER(text)

You must replace the field “text” with words or cell reference values. In this case, as we have the text string in cell A2, we will put the cell reference value as “A2.”

Refer to the following screenshot to see the UPPER function in action.

4. Convert all the letters of the text string to lowercase in Google Sheets

Suppose, in some cases, you need to convert all the letters of the text string to lowercase. It is where the LOWER function by Google Sheets is helpful for you.

The syntax of the LOWER function is similar to UPPER.

Here is the generic syntax for LOWER,

=LOWER(text)

As we did in the previous section, replace the field “text” with words or cell reference values. In this case, as we have the text string in cell A2, we will put the cell reference value as “A2.”

The final formula will be as below,

=LOWER(A2)