SpeedDrain
AP · Chicago · APA · MLA · Editorial Standards

Title Case Converter

Capitalize headlines, academic essays, blog posts, and book titles according to official AP Style, Chicago Manual of Style, APA 7th, and MLA guidelines.

Style Guide Variations

AP StylebookAssociated Press

Capitalizes words with 4+ letters (e.g. "With", "From", "Into"). Lowercases <= 3 letters.

Speed Drain: The Ultimate Guide to High-Performance Web Tools and Offline Utilities
Chicago Manual of StyleCMOS 17th/18th Ed.

Lowercases all prepositions regardless of length ("between", "through", "with").

Speed Drain: The Ultimate Guide to High-Performance Web Tools and Offline Utilities
APA 7th EditionAmerican Psychological Assoc.

Capitalizes words of 4+ letters and second words in hyphenated compounds.

Speed Drain: The Ultimate Guide to High-Performance Web Tools and Offline Utilities
MLA 9th EditionModern Language Assoc.

Lowercases articles, prepositions of any length, and coordinating conjunctions.

Speed Drain: The Ultimate Guide to High-Performance Web Tools and Offline Utilities
New York Times StyleThe New York Times

Lowercases short prepositions, but capitalizes prepositions with 5+ letters.

Speed Drain: The Ultimate Guide to High-Performance Web Tools and Offline Utilities

Grammar Rule Inspector (Chicago Manual of Style Logic)

Speed(First word of title)
Drain:(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
The(First word following colon / end punctuation)
Ultimate(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
Guide(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
to(CHICAGO: Preposition)
High-Performance(Hyphenated compound word)
Web(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
Tools(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
and(CHICAGO: Coordinating conjunction)
Offline(CHICAGO: Major word (noun/verb/adj))
Utilities(Last word of title)

Key Differences Between Major Title Capitalization Styles

The Great Preposition Debate: AP vs. Chicago

The most frequent point of confusion in headline writing is how prepositions are handled:

  • AP Stylebook (Journalism & PR): Follows a strict letter-count threshold: capitalize all words that have 4 or more letters. Prepositions like With, From, Over, and Into are capitalized in AP.
  • Chicago Manual of Style (Publishing & Books): Lowercases all prepositions regardless of length, including long prepositions like between, through, and against.

Universal Rules Across All Style Guides

Despite differences in preposition handling, all major style standards share these fundamental rules:

  • First and Last Words: The very first word and the final word of the title are always capitalized, even if they are articles or short prepositions (e.g., "What It Is All About").
  • Subtitles: The first word following a colon (:) or em-dash (—) is always capitalized.
  • Always Capitalized Parts of Speech: Nouns, verbs (including short forms like "is", "are", "be"), adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns are never lowercased.