Title Case vs Sentence Case: Which Should You Use?

Capitalisation is one of those small writing decisions that quietly shapes how polished your work looks. Two styles cover almost everything you write: Title Case and Sentence case. Knowing when to use each makes your headings, buttons and titles look intentional instead of accidental.

The quick definitions

• Title Case capitalises the first letter of (almost) every word: How To Compress An Image. It signals "this is a title" at a glance.
• Sentence case capitalises only the first word and any proper nouns, like ordinary prose: How to compress an image.

Both are correct — they just send different signals and suit different places.

When to use Title Case

Reach for Title Case when you want something to read clearly as a label or heading:

• Article and page titles
• Section headings in formal documents
• Book, film and product names
• Navigation links and short button labels

Title Case has a long tradition in journalism and publishing, which is why it still feels authoritative for headlines. If you follow a specific style guide, note that they disagree on the small words: most lower-case short conjunctions and prepositions (a, an, the, of, to) unless they start the title.

When to use Sentence case

Sentence case is the easier style to read and increasingly the default for digital products:

• Body text and paragraphs (always)
• App and website UI — menus, labels, tooltips, form fields
• Email subject lines and most marketing copy
• Long headings, where Title Case starts to feel shouty

Major design systems — including those from Google and Apple — recommend Sentence case for interface text because it is faster to scan and feels more human. If you are writing for a screen, Sentence case is usually the safer choice.

A simple rule of thumb

If you only remember one thing: use Title Case for short titles and labels, and Sentence case for everything you actually read in full. When in doubt, Sentence case rarely looks wrong.

Watch out for these mistakes

• ALL CAPS is not Title Case. Converting a shouting heading to Title Case instantly makes it look more professional.
• Acronyms get flattened. Automatic Title Case can turn NASA into Nasa. After converting, scan for names and acronyms and fix any that matter.
• Be consistent. Pick one style per surface (all your headings, all your buttons) and stick to it. Mixed capitalisation is what actually looks careless.

Convert in one click

You don't have to retype anything to switch styles. Paste your text into our free Case Converter and flip between UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case and Sentence case instantly — it runs entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.

Once you can switch in a click, capitalisation stops being a chore and becomes a quick final polish on everything you publish.