To turn selected text into uppercase in desktop Word, select it, then choose Home > Change Case (Aa) > UPPERCASE. This changes the actual letters, so it is useful when the capitalized text will be copied into another document or app. For the whole document, select the document text first with Ctrl+A.
Change selected text to uppercase
- Open the document and select the sentence, heading, or other text you want to change. Check that the selection does not include an email address, web address, code, or another string whose capitalization matters.
- On the Home tab, open Change Case, the button marked Aa in the Font group.
- Choose UPPERCASE. Review the selection, especially names and abbreviations. Press Ctrl+Z immediately if the result is wrong.
For example, selecting “Quarterly report” and choosing UPPERCASE produces “QUARTERLY REPORT.” The command changes the selected characters; it does not change the font family, size, or paragraph style.
Use a keyboard shortcut
In Word for Windows, select text and press Shift+F3 repeatedly to cycle through lowercase, UPPERCASE, and Capitalize Each Word. Some laptops require Fn+Shift+F3 because the function keys control hardware features. In Word for Mac, Microsoft lists Fn+Shift+F3 for the same case cycle. Watch the selected text after each press so you stop at the intended case.
Change the entire document carefully
Click in the main document body and press Ctrl+A in Windows, or Command+A on a Mac, then use Home > Change Case > UPPERCASE. In a long document, review headings, tables, links, reference entries, and any case-sensitive values before saving. If you only want a title or one paragraph in caps, select that portion instead. Making every paragraph uppercase can make a document harder to scan.
Choose a different case option
The Change Case (Aa) menu has five options, and each one produces a different result:
- Sentence case. Capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.
- lowercase. Removes all capitals from the selection.
- UPPERCASE. Makes every letter a capital.
- Capitalize Each Word. Capitalizes the first letter of every word, including short words like “and” or “of.” It is not the same as editorial title case, so fix those small words by hand.
- tOGGLE cASE. Reverses the case of every letter. This is handy when text was typed with Caps Lock on by mistake.
Headers, footers, and text boxes are separate editing areas, so selecting the main body with Ctrl+A may not change them. To convert that text too:
- Double-click the header or footer, or click inside the text box.
- Select the text in that area.
- Choose Home > Change Case > UPPERCASE.
To go the other way and turn capitals back into lowercase, see how to uncapitalize text in Word.
UPPERCASE versus All caps formatting
The UPPERCASE command converts the stored letters. Word also has an All caps font effect, available in the Font dialog and, on Windows, with Ctrl+Shift+A. That effect changes how the text appears while the underlying typed case may remain different. If you need uppercase characters when copying text elsewhere, use Change Case. If you need a reversible appearance for a heading, a character style or All caps formatting may fit better. Small caps is a separate font effect and does not look the same as full-size uppercase letters.
For capitals that stay the height of lowercase letters, see how to apply small caps in Word.
If Change Case is missing or does nothing
- The Aa button is not visible: Expand Word’s window or look in the Font controls on the Home tab. Make sure you selected ordinary text rather than a picture of text.
- The shortcut changes a laptop function: Add Fn to the key combination, or use the Aa menu.
- You are using Word for the web: Microsoft says the web version does not support the Change Case command. Open the document in desktop Word, or edit a small amount of text manually.
- Only part of the document changed: Check the selection. A selected table cell or text box can limit the scope of Ctrl+A; click in the main body before selecting all.
Check the result before you lose the original casing
Case conversion can remove distinctions you may need later. For example, “iPhone,” “eBay,” and “McDonald” do not return to their original spelling simply by choosing Sentence case. If you changed a long document by mistake, use Undo while the edit is still available. If you already saved and closed the file, look for a previous version or backup rather than trying to guess every name from the uppercase copy.
For a document with many mixed-case names, convert one short passage first. Check the result and only then expand the selection. If your goal is a visually consistent heading, use a Word heading style and its font settings so future headings can be changed together. All-uppercase body text should usually be brief: long passages become harder to scan, especially in a dense report or form.
If you only want each word’s first letter capitalized, choose Capitalize Each Word instead. For another quick text-formatting task, see our guide to striking through text in Word. Microsoft documents the Change Case options and shortcuts.
Matt has been writing about Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products since the days of Windows XP. He spends much of his time writing for sites like WindowBrain.com