Controlling Automatic Capitalization

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated March 29, 2016)

1

As you are typing away on a document, you may have noticed that periodically Word will second-guess what you are doing and capitalize words for you. In general, Word does this when it thinks you are starting a new sentence. If you find yourself undoing Word's decisions on this issue quite a bit, you can turn off the feature completely by following these steps:

  1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and Word 2013 display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. Click Proofing at the left side of the dialog box.
  3. Click the AutoCorrect Options button. Word displays the AutoCorrect dialog box.
  4. Make sure the AutoCorrect tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

    5. Figure 1. The AutoCorrect tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.

  5. Clear the Capitalize First Letter of Sentences check box.
  6. Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6045) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He  is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is one less than 4?

2016-05-28 22:04:10

Linda Takagi

I am a medical transcriptionist and recently installed Word 2010. Since then when my AutoCorrect entries come at the beginning of a sentence they will not capitalize. Yes, I hold the shift key down and yes my 'cap first letter of sentences' box is checked. Also, when I use an AC entry for a capitalized heading, the first letter remains in lower case: hISTORY: If I enter "The patient" (tp) at the start of a sentence it comes out "the patient" My IT dept is baffled. They have all checked my computer up an down with no success but all agree that it has to be a Word issue. Any tips? Obviously this pretty much negates the time-saving properties of AutoCorrect. Thanks.

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