Monday 28 March 2011

NOTE: The PROPCASE Function

Here's just a brief post about a function I just stumbled across. The PROPCASE function coverts a string to "proper case" wherein the first letter of each word is upper case and all others are lower case. Clearly this is a very useful thing for column headings and labels.

Slightly off topic, but worth a mention, you can do this in Microsoft Office products by positioning the insertion pointer within a word or by selecting text (either one word, or a phrase, or a sentance, or more) and then pressing Shift-F3. Pressing Shift-F3 multiple times cycles between several different forms of "case". I use it primarily in Word, Outlook and Powerpoint. It works slightly differently depending upon whether you have a full stop at the end of a sentance! With a full stop, it cycles between upper case, lower case, and simple sentance case (first letter of first word is upper case) . With no full stop it cycles between upper case, lower case, and proper case.

In recent versions of Office, you may find a ChangeCase button in the Font group in the Home tab. Clicking this offers a menu of sentance case, lower case, upper case, capitalise each word, and toggle case.

Note, Shift-F3 is assigned to the ChangeCase command by default, but your Office administrator may have changed the assignment.

OpenOffice contains similar functionality.