Title Case Checker — AP, APA, Chicago & MLA
Check and convert headline capitalization in AP, APA, Chicago and MLA title case. See which words to capitalize or lowercase, then copy the corrected title.
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploadedTitle case rules differ by style guide
"Capitalize the important words" sounds simple, but the major style guides disagree on which words are important. Should it be "Living Without Fear" or "Living without Fear"? "What We Are Fighting For" or "What We Are Fighting for"? This checker applies the rules of the four most common guides — AP, APA, Chicago and MLA — side by side, so you can see the correct form for the guide your publication, school or journal requires. Each card has a badge telling you whether your title already matches.
All four styles capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon or dash, and nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns, including short ones like "Is", "Be" and "It". They differ on minor words. AP (news writing) lowercases articles, coordinating conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer, so longer prepositions such as "With" and "Without" are capitalized. APA (psychology and social sciences) capitalizes every word of four letters or more and lowercases short articles, conjunctions and prepositions; it has no last-word rule. Chicago (books and humanities) lowercases all prepositions regardless of length, plus articles, "and", "but", "for", "or", "nor", "to" and "as", but always capitalizes the last word. MLA (literature and languages) is similar to Chicago and also lowercases "so" and "yet".
See exactly what to change
Choose a style in the selector to compare it with your own capitalization. Words that need changing are shown struck through in red next to the corrected form in green, and the status line counts the differences. Hyphenated compounds such as "Self-Report" and "Long-Term" are handled, and acronyms and brand names such as NASA and iPhone are left as typed. If your title is written entirely in capitals, it is converted from lowercase first.
Some words can act as prepositions or adverbs — "Give Up" capitalizes "up" because it is part of a phrasal verb. The checker treats such words as prepositions, so review phrasal verbs yourself. For other capitalization needs, such as sentence case or camelCase, use the Case Converter. Everything runs in your browser.
How to use
- Enter your titleType or paste a headline, or several titles one per line.
- Compare the stylesSee the title converted to AP, APA, Chicago and MLA style, with a badge showing whether yours already matches.
- Check the differencesPick a style to see exactly which words need a capital or lowercase letter.
- Copy the corrected titleCopy the version for the style guide you follow.