How it works.
PROPER capitalizes the first letter of each word in a string and converts all other letters to lowercase. Great for formatting names, addresses, or locations for report headings.
💡 In simple terms.
Capitalizes the first letter of each word and converts all other letters to lowercase.
Analogy
"Think of this like a teacher correcting capitalization. It makes sure every word starts with a capital letter followed by lowercase."
Syntax guide.
=PROPER(text)
Parameters
textRequired
Text enclosed in double quotation marks, a formula that returns text, or a reference to a cell containing text.
Interactive formula builder.
Fill in the input arguments below to construct your custom formula string. Copy it directly to paste into your Excel spreadsheets.
Generated Output
Best Practices
- Any character that is not a letter (like a space, hyphen, or number) acts as a word separator, causing the next letter to be capitalized.
- PROPER is useful for formatting names before sending automated emails.
Common Gotchas
- PROPER will lowercase abbreviations (e.g. "USA" becomes "Usa" and "CEO" becomes "Ceo").