Excel Tip

Convert Text Case

If you work with a lot of text-based data in Excel, editing text with special upper, lower or other types of capitalization can be a tedious task. Excel offers 3 functions UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER to help you convert letter cases with ease.

UPPER function – to change the existing text to all uppercase letters, e.g. =UPPER(A2)

LOWER function – to change the existing text to all lowercase letters, e.g. = LOWER(A2)

PROPER function – to capitalize the first letter and any other letters that follow any character other than a letter, and change all other letters to lowercase letters, e.g. = PROPER(A2)

These three functions are particularly useful when you need to convert text in a Name or Address column. These functions used with the autofill handle (introduced in the September 2017 newsletter), will help you save time and prevent frustration. Give it a try!

Jiazhi Ma

Information, Analytics and Systems, UC- Oakland