Controlling Automatic Capitalization

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 15, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

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:

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

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

Clear the Capitalize First Letter of Sentences check box.
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, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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What is one minus 0?

2022-01-10 10:32:13

Andrew

Janet, on my system "july" and "samuel" autocorrected once, but then not again. I don't know why. But as for "august" and "john," besides being names these are also ordinary English words that are not always capitalized - e.g., "an august personage," "John went to the john," etc.

Andy.

2022-01-10 00:24:27

Janet

Is there a setting for Word to automatically change the first letter of a proper noun to a capital letter mid-sentence? It does so for some proper nouns like; Australia, England, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sydney, January, February but not july, august, Michael but not samuel but not john, janet, peter, . . . Some proper nouns it will recognise as a proper noun with a red underline but not change the first letter to a capital such as . . . july, samuel ... most people's names it doesn't even recognise as a proper noun.
So much inconsistency is frustrating to say the least . . . especially when writing a long story where you have to go back and check for red underlines and change the first letter ... but then sometimes it changes the first letter automatically ...
Hope you can help ... this problem is driving me, janet, insane!

2021-09-15 07:17:17

Eve Muoki

Thanks a lot! This has been of so much help.

2020-09-17 22:47:03

Ray

I agree with Max..
It is a useful feature, but occasionally annoying. I haven't found a temporary shortcut either.
Perhaps the easiest way around is to write a macro to turn it off and locate it to a keyboard shortcut.
It would be just as quick and effective, with probably the same number or keystrokes.
It works for me.

2020-06-02 09:05:37

Bren

THank you!!!!!

2020-04-08 16:26:54

Max

Allen, is there an easy way (i.e. a keyboard shortcut) to undo the auto-capitalization? I find leaving the feature on useful, but switching to the mouse and focusing over that tiny rectangle to undo a specific instance of auto-capitalization is tedious and annoying.

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