This was bold, but there was little enough of bravery in my words. To apply for protection, where authority is defied, is bold. It is too apt to govern itself by what a bold spirit is encouraged to expect of it. It is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart.
Excel includes several built-in, specialized functions that modify the case of letters within a text string:
- LOWER(): Converts text to all lower case (small letters)
- UPPER(): Converts text all to upper case (capital letters)
- PROPER(): Converts text to title form by capitalizing the first letter of each word
The functions and their syntax work for all versions of Microsoft Excel.
UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER Functions' Syntax and Arguments
A function's syntax refers to the layout of the function and includes the function's name, brackets, comma separators, and arguments.
The syntax for the UPPER() function is:
The syntax for the LOWER() function is:
The syntax for the PROPER() function is:
Each of these functions accept a single argument:
- A cell reference
- A word or words enclosed in quotation marks
- A formula that outputs text
Example Usage
If cell A1 contained the text Success, then the formula
returns SUCCESS.
Likewise, the following formula
returns my cat is awesome.
If you need a refresher for manually entering formulas, check out our step-by-step guide to formulas. We've also prepared a tutorial about the uses and examples of Excel functions.
Use VBA for Changing Text Case
Using formulas for very large spreadsheets or frequently updated data is less efficient than using a Visual Basic for Applications macro. Although VBA is more of an advanced programming technique, Microsoft published a beginner-friendly introduction to VBA for Excel that can get you started.