How to Auto Capitalize in Google Docs?

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Capitalization means using the uppercase or capital letters in a word while writing a text.

Capitalization is used frequently in English where the first letter of the sentence is always capitalized.

In addition, capitalization is also used for places, family names, days, and months.

One simple way to insert a capital letter is using the SHIFT key and the alphabet key which you wish to capitalize.

When we are typing long texts in a flow, the use of the SHIFT key repeatedly interrupts our flow of writing.

For smooth typing, Google Docs gives a feature of Auto Capitalization. 

What is Auto Capitalization in Google Docs?

Auto Capitalization is a feature in Google docs that allows a user to capitalize the letters of the word automatically.

We can toggle this feature between ON and OFF according to our needs.

By default, the feature ‘Automatically Capitalize Words‘ is enabled which means Docs will automatically capitalize the letters at the start of each sentence or proper nouns only.

There are various methods to capitalize the words, you can either capitalize a letter, word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph depending on your requirement.

In this article, we will look at all the methods one by one in detail. 

Method 1: Capitalizing the First Alphabet of All Words In One Go

If you have a list of names and you want to capitalize the first letter of the names at once, here is what you are required to do. 

  1. Select the text you want to capitalize. If you want to select the whole text press ctrl + A.
select the text you want to auto capitalize
  1. From the Menu Bar as seen in the image below, click on Format.
Click the Format option in the menu
  1. Place your pointer on the Text. A list will appear on the right side. 
Hover over the text option
  1. Bring your Pointer on the Capitalization at the bottom of the list. 
Click on Capitalization
  1. Of the three options given, Click on the last Title Case. 
Click on Title case

After clicking on Title Case, the first letters of all the words will be capitalized automatically as shown in the image below. 

All text capitalized
Also read: Biggest Font Style in Google Docs

Method 2: Capitalizing the whole text at once

If you have written the complete text in lowercase (small letters) and you wish to change it to uppercase, you don’t need to rewrite the entire text.

Just follow these simple steps and convert your text into uppercase. 

  1. Select the text you want to capitalize. If you want to select the whole text press ctrl + A.
Select the text you want to capitalize
  1. On the Menu Bar, click on Format Tab.
Click on Format
  1. Place the pointer on Text. A list will appear on the right side.
Hover the cursor of the text option
  1. Bring the pointer on Capitalization at the bottom of the list. 
Click on Capitalization
  1. Of the three options given, Click on the second option UPPERCASE.
Click the Upper option

The selected text will be automatically converted into Capital letters as shown below. 

Text changed to upper case

Method 3: Find and Replace to Change Capitalization of Specific Words/Phrases

If you have written the entire text but after writing you need to capitalize a particular word, either the whole word or the first letter of the word, in the whole document, then you don’t need to find and capitalize that word every single time.

You can capitalize the word by using the following steps: 

  1. Click on the Edit Tab in the Menu Bar.
Click the Edit option
  1. Click on the Find and Replace at the bottom.
Click on Find and Replace
  1. A Find and Replace dialog box will appear. 
Find and replace dialog box
  1. Type the word you want to capitalize in the Find bar. Let’s say I typed the word jungle.
Enter the text you want to find
  1. Type the word in uppercase in Replace with bar.
Enter the text you want to replace with
  1. Click Replace all.
Click on Replace All

As you can see all the words in the given text will be replaced with the capital word that you typed in the Replace with bar. 

The text has been replaced with upper case text

Method 4: Automatic Substitution Method in Google Docs

This method is useful if you want to replace the words in lowercase with uppercase or if you are using abbreviations in your text as you write them.

By following this method Google docs will automatically capitalize your words, phrases, or abbreviation every time you type them.

Follow the simple steps below. 

  1. Click on the Tools tab in the Menu Bar.
Click the Tools option
  1. Click on the Preferences at the bottom of the list.
Click on Preferences
  1. A dialog box will appear as the one shown below.
Preferences dialog box
  1. Click on Substitution. 
Click on Substitutions tab
  1. Two Columns will appear as you can see in the image below. Under the heading Replace, type the abbreviation or the word or phrase in lowercase letters that you want to capitalize.
Enter the replace text
  1. Under the heading With, type the same abbreviation or the word or phrase but now in uppercase letters. 
Enter the replace with text
  1. Click OK. 
Click OK

Now every time you type the word while writing the text, it will be automatically capitalized. 

NOTE: When you specify the text that should be automatically substituted, it would remain in place unless you remove it. Even if you close the Google Docs file and then open it later (or even a new Google Docs), the setting would still remain in place. 

Below are the steps to remove the automatic substitution in Google Docs:

  1. Click on the Tools tab in the Menu Bar.
Click the tools option
  1. Click on the Preferences.
Click on Preferences
  1. In the Preference dialog box that opens, click on the Substitution tab
substitution tab
  1. Uncheck the changes you made last time.
uncheck the substitution you dont want to happen
  1. Click OK.

Turning OFF the Automatic Capitalization of Words

As we discussed above, the feature of Automatic Capitalization of words is enabled by default, which only capitalizes the first letter of a new sentence.

You can turn this feature OFF if the need arises. By turning auto-capitalization off in Google Docs, when you start writing the new sentence the first letter will not be capitalized.

This should also prevent the auto-capitalization of the proper nouns as well. 

Let’s see how we can disable this feature. 

  1. Click on the Tools tab in the Menu Bar.
Click on Tools
  1. Click on the Preferences at the bottom.
Click on preferences
  1. A dialog box will appear as the one shown below. Under the General, uncheck the first box, Automatically capitalize words and click OK.
uncheck Automatically capitalize words

After unchecking the box, Google Docs will stop capitalizing the words automatically including all the proper nouns.

Now if you want to capitalize any text, you either need to reverse this setting or follow one of the above-mentioned methods step-by-step according to your need.

All above-mentioned settings are applied to Google Docs website only. The auto-capitalization settings in mobile phones or tablets are controlled by the devices’ settings.  

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