How to Change Case in Google Sheets - 2024 (Uppercase, Lowercase, Sentence Case)

Google Sheets is an easy-to-use spreadsheet program for data visualization and reporting. It boasts plenty of cell and text formatting tools. Users can leverage built-in functions such as PROPER, UPPER, and LOWER to change the sentence or word case.

In contrast to other spreadsheet software, Google Sheets lacks a built-in change case or capitalization tool.

You can only do it using built-in functions.

In this quick guide, let us learn various methods to change case in Google Sheets. We will discuss the steps to turn words or sentences into lowercase, uppercase, and sentence case.

Click on the following links to jump to that particular section of the article:

How to capitalize all letters
How to make all letters lowercase
[Sentence Case] – How to change the first letter of the sentence to uppercase
How to change the first letter of every word to uppercase

Download the Example Google Sheets

Here is the Google Sheets, which contains the datasets used to demonstrate the functions to change the case of words and sentences. You can make a copy of it and follow me along as we move through this article.

Click Here!

If you have your Google Sheet ready with the required dataset, skip downloading the above file.

Now, without any further ado, let’s start.

How To Capitalize All Letters In Google Sheets

It is the most common scenario. Consider the following example where we have employee names in the first column.

The names do not follow any fixed format.

Our task is to capitalize all the names using the built-in Google Sheets function.

Explained: The UPPERCASE Function in Google Sheets

The UPPERCASE function is used to capitalize all the letters from a specific cell.

It is a simple-to-use function with the following general syntax,

=UPPER(text)

Here, the argument “text” needs to be replaced with the text or cell reference holding the text string that you wish to capitalize.

Now, let’s look at the steps to use the UPPER function.

Select the desired cell
Type “=upper”
Choose the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
Replace the text argument with the cell reference “A2”
Complete the parentheses using “)”
Press “Enter” on your keyboard

Our final formula should look like the following,

=UPPER(A2)

To apply this formula to the rest of the cells, follow the steps below,

Select the cell holding the formula
Hover to the Fill Handle on the lower-rightmost corner
You will see a “+” icon
Click on it and drag the formula to the end of the table

Google Sheets will instantly capitalize the text string from the reference cell, as shown in the above GIF.

How To Make All Letters Lowercase in Google Sheets

In the previous section, we learned to convert the text string from the given cell to uppercase. Now, let us learn the steps to convert the entire text string to lowercase.

To do this, Google Sheets offers a function named the LOWER.

Explained: The LOWER Function in Google Sheets

This function converts all of the letters from a specific cell into lowercase. Here’s the general syntax for the function,

=LOWER(text)

The “text” argument needs to be replaced with the words or sentence that you wish to convert to lowercase. Note that you can either manually enter the text string or provide the cell reference.

Let’s consider the same example from the previous section.

Our task is to convert all the names to lowercase using the LOWER function in Google Sheets.

Let’s begin,

Select the desired cell
Type “=lower”
Choose the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
For the text argument, let us put the cell reference “A2”
Close the bracket using “)”
Press “Enter” on your keyboard

Here’s how the final formula should look after following the steps above,

=LOWER(A2)

Now, let us use this formula on the rest of the cell using the steps below,

Click on the cell holding the formula
Go to the Fill Handle on the lower-rightmost corner of the cell
You will notice a “+” icon
Click on that “+” icon and drag it to the end of the table

As you can see in the above GIF, all the names are instantly converted to lowercase.

How To Change The First Letter Of The Sentence To Uppercase

Consider the following table where the cells from the first column contain sentences in lowercase.

Let us convert the first letter of each sentence to uppercase. In other words, we will change the cell format to sentence case.

Note that this is a particular case where you need to combine the UPPER function with the LEFT and RIGHT functions in Google Sheets.

We will be creating the following formula.

=UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-1)

Note that the above formula is divided into two sections.

UPPER(LEFT(A2,1)) is used to separate and capitalize the first letter
RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-1) is there to extract all the letters of the sentence except the first one

To simplify things, we will divide the process into three steps based on the above components of the formula.

STEP #1 – Separate and capitalize the first letter of the sentence

In this step, we will use the UPPER and LEFT functions to separate and capitalize the first letter of the sentence.

Click on the desired cell
Type “=upper”
Select the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
Now, type “left” and select the first option from the popup
(As the LEFT is a function in Google Sheets, whenever the user puts the equal symbol and types the keyword left, a popup is displayed)
Replace the string argument of the LEFT function with the cell reference “A2”
Press “,” to move to the following argument
Type “1” in the place of the “number_of_characters” argument
Close the bracket for the LEFT function using “)”
Close the bracket for the UPPER function using “)”
Press “Enter” key

Our final formula would be as follows,

=UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))

The above formula will return only the first letter of the sentence, as shown in the above GIF.

STEP #2 – Extract all the letters of the sentence except the first one

Now, as shown in the following image, all letters of the sentence are in lowercase.

Let us exclude the first letter and extract the remaining ones from the sentence.

Select the desired cell
Type “=right”
Choose the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
Put the cell reference “A2” in the place of the string argument
Press “,” to move to the next argument
Type “len” and choose the first option from the popup
(You will see a popup as shown in the above image. It is because the LEN is a function in Google Sheets)
Replace the text argument of the LEN function with the cell reference “A2”
Complete the bracket for the LEN function using “)”
Type “-1”
Complete the bracket for the RIGHT function using “)”

Here’s how the final formula looks:

=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-1)

As seen in the above GIF, the formula will return all the letters from cell A2 except the first letter.

STEP #3 – Connect the results obtained in the previous two steps

This is the final step to change the first letter of the sentence to uppercase. We need to use the “&” operator in the Google Sheets to connect the results obtained by the formulas as discussed above.

Referring to the above table, we have used the first formula in the cell “B2” and the second formula in the cell “C2”.

Now, let us connect them:

Select the cell “D2”
Type “=”
Now, click on the cell “B2”
Put “&” after the cell reference B2
Next, click on the cell “C2”
Press “Enter” on your keyboard

This is the formula we will have:

=B2&C2

Note that instead of creating three separate columns, you can add only one column and use the following formula.

=UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-1)

It would give you the same results.

How To Change The First Letter Of Every Word To Uppercase

This is the final example on this list of formatting the text string in Google Sheets.

You can use the PROPER function in Google Sheets to capitalize the first letter of every word from the sentence.

Explained: The PROPER Function in Google Sheets

It is another simple-to-use function for changing the case of words or sentences within the given cell.

Here’s the general syntax for the function,

=LOWER(text)

Replace the “text” argument by manually entering the sentence or providing the cell reference containing the text string.

This function is beneficial when you have full names that contain a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. Refer to the following image.

Our task is to convert the above names to make sure the initial letter of the first and last name will be in uppercase. Similarly, we will also ensure that apart from the initial letters, the remaining letters will be in lowercase.

Let’s start,

Click on the desired cell
Type “=proper”
Select the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
Replace the text argument with the cell reference “A2”
Complete the bracket using “)”
Press “Enter” on your keyboard

Here is the final formula:

=PROPER(A2)

Google Sheets will instantly convert the first and last names as per the standard guidelines.

FAQs

Q. How can I access the UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER functions from the main menu in Google Sheets?

There are two ways to access any function in Google Sheets. In the first method, you can simply select the cell and type “=” followed by the function name.

Whereas for the second method, you need to follow the steps below,

Select the cell
Go to the main menu and click on the “Insert” tab
Choose “Function” from the popup
Now, click on the “Text” option from the list
You will see the range of functions available in that category. Click on the function name as per your choice to insert it in the cell

Both of the methods to access a formula in Google Sheets are pretty quick and easy.

However, we suggest using the first method if you are aware of the function name. It will save time and let you quickly insert the function.

Q. What is the best way to apply the case-changing formula to an entire column?

We have already discussed the steps to apply a formula to an entire column using Fill Handle.

Apart from that, there is one more method to apply formulas to an entire column quickly. It works like a charm with all the case-changing formulas, including the UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER functions.

The method uses the ARRAYFORMULA function in Google Sheets.

Consider the following table where we need to capitalize all the letters.

Here are the steps:

Select the desired cell
Type “=arrayformula”
Choose the first option from the popup or press the “Tab” key
Now, type “upper”
(A popup will be displayed as shown in the above image)
Select the first option from the popup
Replace the text argument of the UPPER function with the cell range as “A2:A10”
Complete the parentheses for the UPPER function using “)”
Complete the parentheses for the ARRAYFORMULA function using “)”
Press “Enter” on your keyboard