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.

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


1

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.

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:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

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.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Special Characters in Fields

If you try to add a quote mark or a backslash as part of a field parameter or switch, you may be surprised at what you ...

Discover More

Ctrl+Break Won't Work to Stop a Macro

When you need to stop a macro while it is running, you normally press Ctrl+Break. What are you to do if the keypress ...

Discover More

Using Copy and Paste for Formatting

Want to copy formatting from one cell and paste it into another cell? It's easy to do if you use the Paste Special ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Special Symbols Display Incorrectly

When sharing your documents with others, you may occasionally have a problem where some of the symbols used in your ...

Discover More

Moving the Underline Position

One of the ways that Word allows you to format text is to underline it. However, you have virtually no control on where ...

Discover More

Changing the Color of a Tab's Leader Character

When you set tab stops for a paragraph, you can also specify leader characters to be used with the tab stop. If you want ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 - 4?

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.


This Site

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.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.