PROPER

Excel Functions

Capitalize the first letter in each word

Syntax

EXCEL

=PROPER(text)

Arguments

Parameter	Description
`text`	The text that should be converted to proper case.

Return Value

Text in proper case.

Details

The PROPER function capitalizes each word in a given text string. PROPER function takes just one argument, text, which can be a text value or cell reference. PROPER first lowercases any uppercase letters, then capitalizes each word in the provided text string. Numbers, punctuation, and spaces are not affected. PROPER will convert numbers to text with number formatting removed. Numbers or punctuation characters inside a text string are unaffected: If a numeric value is given to PROPER, number formatting is removed. For example, if cell A1 contains the date June 26, 2021, date formatting will be lost and PROPER will return a date serial number as text: Use the LOWER function to convert text to lowercase, use the UPPER function to convert text to uppercase, and use the PROPER function to capi

Examples

EXCEL

=PROPER("apple") // returns "Apple"
=PROPER("APPLE") // returns "Apple"

Examples

Numbers or punctuation characters inside a text string are unaffected:

EXCEL

=PROPER("XYY-020-kwp") // returns "Xyy-020-Kwp"

Examples

If a numeric value is given to PROPER, number formatting is removed. For example, if cell A1 contains the date June 26, 2021, date formatting will be

EXCEL

=PROPER(A1) // returns "44373"

Capitalizing the first word only

One limitation of the PROPER function is that it will capitalize all words in a text string. If you only want to capitalize the first word (i.e. capit

EXCEL

=REPLACE(A1,1,1,UPPER(LEFT(A1)))

PROPER

Syntax

Arguments

Return Value

Details

Examples

See Also