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I switched an all-caps announcement to sentence case and names like Noon and Riyadh became lowercase; how do I avoid that?

Sentence case lowers every letter and then raises the first letter of each sentence; it has no idea that Noon is a store and Riyadh a city. If your original text is entirely in capitals, nothing in it marks the names, so fix those few words by hand after converting. If your text is already in normal case and you only want sentence starts raised, untick «Lower the rest of each word» and your names stay exactly as typed.

Published · 3 min read

What happened to your announcement

The announcement: NEW ARRIVALS FROM NOON. SHIPPING TO RIYADH IS FREE. After «Sentence case» it read: New arrivals from noon. Shipping to riyadh is free. The first letter of each sentence became a capital as expected, and everything else went lower case, the store and the city included. The tool changed 39 of the 41 letters.

This is not a bug. Text written entirely in capitals carries no hint that NOON is a proper noun and SHIPPING an ordinary word; they all look alike. No case converter can tell them apart without a dictionary of names, and this one has none and does not pretend otherwise.

Case one: the original is all caps

The realistic fix is manual but quick:

  1. Convert the text to «Sentence case» in the Text case converter.
  2. Copy the result and paste it where you will publish.
  3. Find the brand, city and product names and restore their first letter. In a short announcement there are usually only two or three.

If you write many announcements with the same names, draft them in normal case rather than in capitals. Capitals can be added with one click; removing them without losing the names cannot be done.

Case two: normal text, you only want sentence starts

Sometimes the text is in lower case with the names already right, and all you need is a capital at the start of each sentence, for example: new arrivals from Noon. shipping to Riyadh is free.

  • With the default setting («Lower the rest of each word» ticked): New arrivals from noon. Shipping to riyadh is free. Both names are lost, and 4 characters changed.
  • With «Lower the rest of each word» unticked: New arrivals from Noon. Shipping to Riyadh is free. Only 2 characters changed, the first letter of each sentence, and everything else stayed as you typed it.

The same setting also protects words like iPhone, USA and SKU that you already wrote correctly.

Other things sentence case does

  • The English pronoun I always comes back as a capital, even after lowering: I THINK YOU WILL LOVE IT became I think you will love it.
  • Abbreviations ending in a full stop count as the end of a sentence. In my test VISIT US E.G. ON SATURDAY became Visit us e.g. On saturday: On got a capital after e.g., and saturday lost its capital.
  • Every new line starts a new sentence, so the first letter of each line is raised.

Common questions

Is title case better for names?

Title case raises the first letter of every word, so the names come out right, but every other word gets a capital too. In an announcement made of full sentences that looks odd; for short headings it may suit you.

Is Arabic text in the announcement affected?

No. Arabic has no case, so it stays the same in every mode.