Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Changing Text Case Many Times.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 25, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Word provides a shortcut for changing the capitalization of your text. You can quickly change between lowercase, uppercase, and initial caps (first letter only is capitalized). To do this, all you need to do is to select the text that you wish to alter, and then press Shift+F3. You can continue to press Shift+F3 until you are satisfied with how the text appears.
There may be times when you are working with a large document that you want to change the case of the words in all occurrences of a particular style. For instances, let's assume that you have a document that you wrote, in which heading level 3 was originally intended to be all uppercase. Now, however, you need to change it so that only the first letter of each word is uppercase (usually referred to as initial caps). The following macro will search for all occurrences of the Heading 3 style and change it to initial caps.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here:
Sub ChangeTextCase()
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Heading 3")
Selection.Find.Execute
While Selection.Find.Found
Selection.Range.Case = wdTitleWord
Selection.Find.Execute
Wend
End Sub
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13049) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Changing Text Case Many Times.
Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!
Word gives you control over how your text appears on the page. This includes adjusting how close letters are to each ...
Discover MoreWhen you open documents that were created a long time ago on a system far, far away (sounds almost epic, doesn't it?), ...
Discover MoreThe strikethrough text feature in Word can be used as part of your document or to indicate that changes have been made to ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2021-04-17 18:01:30
John Mann
Why not simply change one occurence of the style in question (Heading 3 in the example), then redefine the style to that new format. That should cause all instances of the style to change to match the new definition.
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
Visit the WordTips channel on YouTube
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments