Excel Sentence Case (Table of Contents)
Introduction to Sentence Case in Excel
Sentence case is a feature in Excel to change the text case. There are some functions to convert the text to the upper, lower and proper case as per need. Microsoft Word has a change case button which changes the text to a proper case automatically when we require but Excel doesn’t have the feature. So, sentence case comes into use. Normally, while typing, we write in lower case letters. So, sentence case can act in this case to convert the text into the upper or proper case as per need. There are three types of functions in sentence case as described below:
- Upper(): Upper function converts the text into an upper case from any other case.
- Lower(): Lower function converts the text into a lower case from any other case.
- Proper(): Proper function converts the text into a proper case from a mixed or improper text. For example, the word “pRoDucT” is converted to “Product”.
Why Sentence Case is Used?
Microsoft Word has a built-in button to convert the text into the required format but Excel doesn’t have the same. But there is a solution for that i.e sentence case functions. A single word can be converted with one function only, either lower(), upper() or proper(). But what if a sentence needs to converted into a required format that has lower, upper and mixed case words. There is a twist for that. But after one sentence, we can drag the cursor downwards and convert all sentences to proper case. Below are the steps to convert such sentences into the proper case.
Illustrations of Sentence Case in Excel
Some cases/illustrations where use sentence case works are as follows:
Illustration #1
We have entered a sample text in Excel worksheet as below.
This text is mixed with both lower and upper case letters. We need to convert the entire text into an upper case. For that, we’ll use upper case function in B1 cell as follows:
The result is “REPUTATION” which is an upper case word now.
Let us take another example where we need to convert texts into a lower case.
Illustration #2
The word “MAGAZINE” is in upper case. We need to convert it into a lower case.
We’ll use lower() as mentioned below.
The result is “magazine” as shown below.
Now let us take an example of proper case function. The below text is an improper text which is needed to convert to proper case.
Illustration #3
Now we’ll apply proper() to fix it.
The output is “Imagine” where the first letter is in upper case and the rest are in lower case.
How to Use Sentence Case in Excel?
There are three functions to convert the text in Excel. Let us understand clearly about these functions.
Example #1 – Upper()
It converts any text to upper case. We have entered a text in Excel worksheet. Below is the excel data which is not properly entered.
We need to convert these texts into upper case. For that, we’ll use the upper case function mentioned below.
After applying the upper(A1), “India” is converted to “INDIA” as below where all letters are in upper case. A1 is the parameter which implies that we changing the text case of A1 cell and the result is shown in B1 cell.
Similarly, other cells can be converted into upper case. Alternatively, we can drag the cursor from B1 to B5 to automatically convert the texts into the upper case.
Example #2 – Lower()
It converts any text into lower case. Below is the text which is in the upper case which we need to convert into lower case. Not only the upper case, any improper or mixed text can also be converted into lower case. Below is the data in Excel which are mixed and unorganized.
Let us apply lower function as below to convert the first text to lower case.
A1 in lower(A1) signifies that A1 cell’s text is to be converted into lower case. Now, the “PHONE” word is converted to “phone”. Similarly, other texts can be converted either by using lower() or dragging from the B1 cell.
Example #3 – Proper()
We have an Excel data which is in an improper state. We need to convert it into the proper state.
The proper case function will convert these texts in an Excel file to the proper case as below.
The word “MAtCh” is now converted to “Match” where the starting letter is in upper case and rest letters are in lower case. The rest of the words can be converted into a proper case in the same manner.
- Now, after these functions, there are some sentences, wherein we have improper words that we need to fix. There, all three functions come into use. For the same, we have an Excel data which is an improper sentence in cell A1.
This text is mixed with lower and upper case letters in between the words. Here sentence case function is used.
The output is a proper case sentence now.
Here, only the first letter of the first word is in upper case and the rest are in lower case. The first part of function UPPER(LEFT(A1,1)) means in the word India which is the first and left-most word of cell A1, where only the first letter is converted to upper case. And the next part LOWER(RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-1)) implies all the characters besides “India” to be converted in lower case.
Similarly, if we have multiple sentences below the first cell in the same column, we can simply drag the cursor from the first cell and the rest sentences will be in proper case.
Things to Remember About Sentence Case in Excel
- The function’s role is to convert the text into the required format only.
- Excel doesn’t have a built-in button to convert text, so sentence case functions are used.
- The function can be applied in other cells besides the cell where we have the text.
- The text can have symbols in name or string but not numbers. For example, D’Arcy Short.
- For sentences, we use a mixture of lower and upper cases to make it a proper sentence.
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