How to Convert Text to Upper, Lower, or Proper Case in Excel

Built-in functions facilitate text case conversions

By
Ted French
Ted French
Writer
Former Lifewire writer Ted French is a Microsoft Certified Professional who teaches and writes about spreadsheets and spreadsheet programs.
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Updated on February 18, 2021

What to Know

  • The syntax for the UPPER() (capital letters) function is =UPPER(text)
  • The syntax for the LOWER() (lowercase letters) function is =LOWER(text)
  • The syntax for the PROPER() (title form) function is =PROPER(text)

Excel includes several built-in, specialized functions that modify the case of letters within a text string. These functions and their syntax work for all versions of Microsoft Excel.

  • 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

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: 

=UPPER(text)

The syntax for the LOWER() function is: 

=LOWER(text)

The syntax for the PROPER() function is: 

=PROPER(text)

Each of these functions accept a single argument:

  • A cell reference
  • A word or words enclosed in quotation marks
  • A formula that outputs text
Uppercase and lowercase Cyrillic letter Ye. Times New Roman font.
Wikimedia Commons

Example Usage

If cell A1 contained the text Success, then the formula 

=UPPER(A1)

returns SUCCESS.

Likewise, the following formula 

=LOWER("My CaT iS aWeSoMe")

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.

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