Convert string to Title Case with JavaScript

Question

Is there a simple way to convert a string to Title Case? E.g. john smith becomes John Smith. I'm not looking for something complicated like John Resig's solution, just (hopefully) some kind of one- or two-liner.

user_1200558 · Answer

Try this:

function toTitleCase(str) {
  return str.replace(
    /\w\S*/g,
    function(txt) {
      return txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase();
    }
  );
}


  Input:
  

  
Output:

user_1073738 · Answer

I prefer the following over the other answers. It matches only the first letter of each word and capitalises it. Simpler code, easier to read and less bytes. It preserves existing capital letters to prevent distorting acronyms. However you can always call toLowerCase() on your string first.

function title(str) {
  return str.replace(/(^|\s)\S/g, function(t) { return t.toUpperCase() });
}

You can add this to your string prototype which will allow you to 'my string'.toTitle() as follows:

String.prototype.toTitle = function() {
  return this.replace(/(^|\s)\S/g, function(t) { return t.toUpperCase() });
}

Example:

String.prototype.toTitle = function() {
  return this.replace(/(^|\s)\S/g, function(t) { return t.toUpperCase() });
}

console.log('all lower case ->','all lower case'.toTitle());
console.log('ALL UPPER CASE ->','ALL UPPER CASE'.toTitle());
console.log("I'm a little teapot ->","I'm a little teapot".toTitle());

user_2056157 · Answer

You could immediately toLowerCase the string, and then just toUpperCase the first letter of each word. Becomes a very simple 1 liner:

function titleCase(str) {
  return str.toLowerCase().replace(/\b\w/g, s => s.toUpperCase());
}

console.log(titleCase('iron man'));
console.log(titleCase('iNcrEdible hulK'));

user_6320039 · Answer

Benchmark

TL;DR

The winner of this benchmark is the plain old for loop:

function titleize(str) {
    let upper = true
    let newStr = ""
    for (let i = 0, l = str.length; i < l; i++) {
        // Note that you can also check for all kinds of spaces  with
        // str[i].match(/\s/)
        if (str[i] == " ") {
            upper = true
            newStr += str[i]
            continue
        }
        newStr += upper ? str[i].toUpperCase() : str[i].toLowerCase()
        upper = false
    }
    return newStr
}
// NOTE: you could beat that using charcode and string builder I guess.

Details

I've taken the most popular and distinct answers and made a benchmark with those.

Here's the result on my MacBook pro:

And for completeness, here are the functions used:

str = "the QUICK BrOWn Fox jUMPS oVeR the LAzy doG";
function regex(str) {
  return str.replace(
    /\w\S*/g,
    function(txt) {
      return txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase();
    }
  );
}

function split(str) {
  return str.
    split(' ').
    map(w => w[0].toUpperCase() + w.substr(1).toLowerCase()).
    join(' ');
}

function complete(str) {
  var i, j, str, lowers, uppers;
  str = str.replace(/([^\W_]+[^\s-]*) */g, function(txt) {
    return txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase();
  });

  // Certain minor words should be left lowercase unless 
  // they are the first or last words in the string
  lowers = ['A', 'An', 'The', 'And', 'But', 'Or', 'For', 'Nor', 'As', 'At', 
  'By', 'For', 'From', 'In', 'Into', 'Near', 'Of', 'On', 'Onto', 'To', 'With'];
  for (i = 0, j = lowers.length; i < j; i++)
    str = str.replace(new RegExp('\s' + lowers[i] + '\s', 'g'), 
      function(txt) {
        return txt.toLowerCase();
      });

  // Certain words such as initialisms or acronyms should be left uppercase
  uppers = ['Id', 'Tv'];
  for (i = 0, j = uppers.length; i < j; i++)
    str = str.replace(new RegExp('\b' + uppers[i] + '\b', 'g'), 
      uppers[i].toUpperCase());

  return str;
}

function firstLetterOnly(str) {
  return str.replace(/\b(\S)/g, function(t) { return t.toUpperCase(); });
}

function forLoop(str) {
  let upper = true;
  let newStr = "";
  for (let i = 0, l = str.length; i < l; i++) {
    if (str[i] == " ") {
      upper = true;
        newStr += " ";
      continue;
    }
    newStr += upper ? str[i].toUpperCase() : str[i].toLowerCase();
    upper = false;
  }
  return newStr;
}

Note that i deliberately did not change the prototype since I consider it a really bad practice and I don't think we should promote such practice in our answers. This is only ok for small codebases when you're the only one working on it.

If you want to add any other way to do it to this benchmark, please comment a link to the answer !

EDIT 2022 Mac M1: On my new computer, with more recent chrome, split wins. If you really care about performance on a specific machine you should run the benchmark yourself

user_11693215 · Answer

Surprised to see no one mentioned the use of rest parameter. Here is a simple one liner that uses ES6 Rest parameters.

let str="john smith"
str=str.split(" ").map(([firstChar,...rest])=>firstChar.toUpperCase()+rest.join("").toLowerCase()).join(" ")
console.log(str)

user_1869326 · Answer

If you need a grammatically correct answer:

This answer takes into account prepositions such as "of", "from", .. The output will generate an editorial style title you would expect to see in a paper.

toTitleCase Function

The function that takes into account grammar rules listed here. The function also consolidates whitespace and removes special characters (modify regex for your needs)

const toTitleCase = (str) => {
  const articles = ['a', 'an', 'the'];
  const conjunctions = ['for', 'and', 'nor', 'but', 'or', 'yet', 'so'];
  const prepositions = [
    'with', 'at', 'from', 'into','upon', 'of', 'to', 'in', 'for',
    'on', 'by', 'like', 'over', 'plus', 'but', 'up', 'down', 'off', 'near'
  ];

  // The list of spacial characters can be tweaked here
  const replaceCharsWithSpace = (str) => str.replace(/[^0-9a-z&/\]/gi, ' ').replace(/(\s\s+)/gi, ' ');
  const capitalizeFirstLetter = (str) => str.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + str.substr(1);
  const normalizeStr = (str) => str.toLowerCase().trim();
  const shouldCapitalize = (word, fullWordList, posWithinStr) => {
    if ((posWithinStr == 0) || (posWithinStr == fullWordList.length - 1)) {
      return true;
    }

    return !(articles.includes(word) || conjunctions.includes(word) || prepositions.includes(word));
  }

  str = replaceCharsWithSpace(str);
  str = normalizeStr(str);

  let words = str.split(' ');
  if (words.length <= 2) { // Strings less than 3 words long should always have first words capitalized
    words = words.map(w => capitalizeFirstLetter(w));
  }
  else {
    for (let i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
      words[i] = (shouldCapitalize(words[i], words, i) ? capitalizeFirstLetter(words[i], words, i) : words[i]);
    }
  }

  return words.join(' ');
}

Unit Tests to Ensure Correctness

import { expect } from 'chai';
import { toTitleCase } from '../../src/lib/stringHelper';

describe('toTitleCase', () => {
  it('Capitalizes first letter of each word irrespective of articles, conjunctions or prepositions if string is no greater than two words long', function(){
    expect(toTitleCase('the dog')).to.equal('The Dog'); // Capitalize articles when only two words long
    expect(toTitleCase('for all')).to.equal('For All'); // Capitalize conjunctions when only two words long
    expect(toTitleCase('with cats')).to.equal('With Cats'); // Capitalize prepositions when only two words long
  });

  it('Always capitalize first and last words in a string irrespective of articles, conjunctions or prepositions', function(){
    expect(toTitleCase('the beautiful dog')).to.equal('The Beautiful Dog');
    expect(toTitleCase('for all the deadly ninjas, be it so')).to.equal('For All the Deadly Ninjas Be It So');
    expect(toTitleCase('with cats and dogs we are near')).to.equal('With Cats and Dogs We Are Near');
  });

  it('Replace special characters with space', function(){
    expect(toTitleCase('[wolves & lions]: be careful')).to.equal('Wolves & Lions Be Careful');
    expect(toTitleCase('wolves & lions, be careful')).to.equal('Wolves & Lions Be Careful');
  });

  it('Trim whitespace at beginning and end', function(){
    expect(toTitleCase(' mario & Luigi superstar saga ')).to.equal('Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga');
  });

  it('articles, conjunctions and prepositions should not be capitalized in strings of 3+ words', function(){
    expect(toTitleCase('The wolf and the lion: a tale of two like animals')).to.equal('The Wolf and the Lion a Tale of Two like Animals');
    expect(toTitleCase('the  three Musketeers  And plus ')).to.equal('The Three Musketeers and Plus');
  });
});

Please note that I am removing quite a bit of special characters from the strings provided. You will need to tweak the regex to address the requirements of your project.

user_265725 · Answer

I made this function which can handle last names (so it's not title case) such as "McDonald" or "MacDonald" or "O'Toole" or "D'Orazio". It doesn't however handle German or Dutch names with "van" or "von" which are often in lower-case... I believe "de" is often lower-case too such as "Robert de Niro". These would still have to be addressed.

function toProperCase(s)
{
  return s.toLowerCase().replace( /\b((m)(a?c))?(\w)/g,
          function($1, $2, $3, $4, $5) { if($2){return $3.toUpperCase()+$4+$5.toUpperCase();} return $1.toUpperCase(); });
}

user_7291240 · Answer

First, convert your string into array by splitting it by spaces:

var words = str.split(' ');

Then use array.map to create a new array containing the capitalized words.

var capitalized = words.map(function(word) {
    return word.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + word.substring(1, word.length);
});

Then join the new array with spaces:

capitalized.join(" ");

function titleCase(str) {
  str = str.toLowerCase(); //ensure the HeLlo will become Hello at the end
  var words = str.split(" ");

  var capitalized = words.map(function(word) {
    return word.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + word.substring(1, word.length);
  });
  return capitalized.join(" ");
}

console.log(titleCase("I'm a little tea pot"));

NOTE:

This of course has a drawback. This will only capitalize the first letter of every word. By word, this means that it treats every string separated by spaces as 1 word.

Supposedly you have:

str = "I'm a little/small tea pot";

This will produce

I'm A Little/small Tea Pot

compared to the expected

I'm A Little/Small Tea Pot

In that case, using Regex and .replace will do the trick:

with ES6:

const capitalize = str => str.length
  ? str[0].toUpperCase() +
    str.slice(1).toLowerCase()
  : '';

const escape = str => str.replace(/./g, c => `\${c}`);
const titleCase = (sentence, seps = ' _-/') => {
  let wordPattern = new RegExp(`[^${escape(seps)}]+`, 'g');
  
  return sentence.replace(wordPattern, capitalize);
};
console.log( titleCase("I'm a little/small tea pot.") );

or without ES6:

function capitalize(str) {
  return str.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + str.substring(1, str.length).toLowerCase();
}

function titleCase(str) {
  return str.replace(/[^\ /\-\_]+/g, capitalize);
}

console.log(titleCase("I'm a little/small tea pot."));

PhiLho_15459 · Answer

var toMatch = "john w. smith";
var result = toMatch.replace(/(\w)(\w*)/g, function (_, i, r) {
      return i.toUpperCase() + (r != null ? r : "");
    }
)

Seems to work... Tested with the above, "the quick-brown, fox? /jumps/ ^over^ the ¡lazy! dog..." and "C:/program files/some vendor/their 2nd application/a file1.txt".

If you want 2Nd instead of 2nd, you can change to /([a-z])(\w*)/g.

The first form can be simplified as:

function toTitleCase(toTransform) {
  return toTransform.replace(/\b([a-z])/g, function (_, initial) {
      return initial.toUpperCase();
  });
}

user_111624 · Answer

"john f. kennedy".replace(/\b\S/g, t => t.toUpperCase())

user_3320740 · Answer

Here's a really simple & concise ES6 function to do this:

const titleCase = (str) => {
  return str.replace(/\w\S*/g, (t) => { return t.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + t.substr(1).toLowerCase() });
}

export default titleCase;

Works well included in a utilities folder and used as follows:

import titleCase from './utilities/titleCase.js';

const string = 'my title & string';

console.log(titleCase(string)); //-> 'My Title & String'

user_9602904 · Answer

here's another solution using css (and javascript, if the text you want to transform is in uppercase):

html

JOHN SMITH

js

var str = document.getElementById('text').innerHtml;
var return_text = str.toLowerCase();

css

#text{text-transform:capitalize;}

user_7594095 · Answer

My one line solution:

String.prototype.capitalizeWords = function() {
    return this.split(" ").map(function(ele){ return ele[0].toUpperCase() + ele.slice(1).toLowerCase();}).join(" ");
};

Then, you can call the method capitalizeWords() on any string. For example:

var myS = "this actually works!";
myS.capitalizeWords();

>>> This Actually Works

My other solution:

function capitalizeFirstLetter(word) {
    return word[0].toUpperCase() + word.slice(1).toLowerCase();
}
String.prototype.capitalizeAllWords = function() {
    var arr = this.split(" ");
    for(var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
        arr[i] = capitalizeFirstLetter(arr[i]);
    }
    return arr.join(" ");
};

Then, you can call the method capitalizeWords() on any string. For example:

var myStr = "this one works too!";
myStr.capitalizeWords();

>>> This One Works Too

Alternative solution based on Greg Dean answer:

function capitalizeFirstLetter(word) {
    return word[0].toUpperCase() + word.slice(1).toLowerCase();
}
String.prototype.capitalizeWords = function() {
    return this.replace(/\w\S*/g, capitalizeFirstLetter);
};

Then, you can call the method capitalizeWords() on any string. For example:

var myString = "yes and no";
myString.capitalizeWords()

>>> Yes And No

user_11194082 · Answer

Simple way to convert an individual word to title case

Using the "Slice" method and String concatenation

str.slice(0, 1).toUpperCase() + str.slice(1, str.length)

*Add .toLowerCase() to the end if you want to lowercase the rest of the word

Using ES6 Spread Operator, Map, and Join

[...str].map((w, i) => i === 0 ? w[0].toUpperCase() : w).join('')

user_664456 · Answer

jim-bob -> Jim-Bob

jim/bob -> Jim/Bob

jim_bob -> Jim_Bob

isn't -> Isn't

école -> École

McDonalds -> McDonalds

function toTitleCase(str) {
  return str.replace(/\p{L}+('\p{L}+)?/gu, function(txt) {
    return txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.slice(1)
  })
}

user_1421528 · Answer

I've tested this solution for Turkish and it works with special characters too.

function toTitleCase(str) {
  return str.toLocaleLowerCase().replace(
    /(^|Ü|ü|Ş|ş|Ç|ç|İ|ı|Ö|ö|\w)\S*/g,
    (txt) => txt.charAt(0).toLocaleUpperCase() + txt.substring(1),
  )
}

console.log(toTitleCase('İSMAİL HAKKI'))
console.log(toTitleCase('ŞAHMARAN BİNBİR GECE MASALLARI'))
console.log(toTitleCase('TEKNOLOJİ ÜRÜNÜ'))

I've added "toLocaleLowerCase" at the begining since I've all caps data. You can discard it if you don't need it.

Using locale operations is important for non-english languages.

user_2013403 · Answer

A one-liner using regex, get all \g starting characters of words \b[a-zA-Z] , and apply .toUpperCase()

const textString = "Convert string to title case with Javascript.";
const converted = textString.replace(/\b[a-zA-Z]/g, (match) => match.toUpperCase());
console.log(converted)

user_7370437 · Answer

Here is my answer Guys Please comment and like if your problem solved.

function toTitleCase(str) {
  return str.replace(
    /(\w*\W*|\w*)\s*/g,
    function(txt) {
    return(txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase())
    }
  ); 
}


  Input:
  

  
Output:

user_3401966 · Answer

https://lodash.com/docs/4.17.11#capitalize

Use Lodash Library..!! More Reliable

_.capitalize('FRED'); => 'Fred'

user_3917091 · Answer

My list is based on three quick searches. One for a list of words not to be capitalized, and one for a full list of prepositions.

One final search made the suggestion that prepositions 5 letters or longer should be capitalized, which is something I liked. My purpose is for informal use. I left 'without' in their, because it's the obvious counterpart to with.

So it capitalizes acronyms, the first letter of the title, and the first letter of most words.

It is not intended to handle words in caps-lock. I wanted to leave those alone.

function camelCase(str) {
  return str.replace(/((?:^|\.)\w|\b(?!(?:a|amid|an|and|anti|as|at|but|but|by|by|down|for|for|for|from|from|in|into|like|near|nor|of|of|off|on|on|onto|or|over|past|per|plus|save|so|than|the|to|to|up|upon|via|with|without|yet)\b)\w)/g, function(character) {
  return character.toUpperCase();
})}
    
console.log(camelCase('The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, named butter, who was taking a nap outside the u.s. Post Office. The fox jumped so high that NASA saw him on their radar.'));

user_13929460 · Answer

You can capitalize 1st char and join with the remaining string.

let str = 'john smith';
let res = str.split(" ");
res.forEach((w, index) => {
    res[index] =  w.charAt(0).toUpperCase().concat(w.slice(1, w.length))
});
res = res.join(" ");
console.log(res);

user_6778784 · Answer

Robust Functional programming way to do Title Case Function

Exaplin Version

function toTitleCase(input){
    let output = input
        .split(' ')  // 'HOw aRe YOU' => ['HOw' 'aRe' 'YOU']
        .map((letter) => {
            let firstLetter = letter[0].toUpperCase() // H , a , Y  => H , A , Y
            let restLetters = letter.substring(1).toLowerCase() // Ow, Re, OU => ow, re, ou
            return firstLetter + restLetters // conbine together
        })
        .join(' ') //['How' 'Are' 'You'] => 'How Are You'
    return output
}

Implementation version

function toTitleCase(input){
    return input
            .split(' ')
            .map(i => i[0].toUpperCase() + i.substring(1).toLowerCase())
            .join(' ') 
}

toTitleCase('HoW ARe yoU') // reuturn 'How Are You'

user_7763149 · Answer

this is a test ---> This Is A Test

function capitalize(str) {

  const word = [];

  for (let char of str.split(' ')) {
    word.push(char[0].toUpperCase() + char.slice(1))
  }

  return word.join(' ');

}

console.log(capitalize("this is a test"));

user_1877349 · Answer

john smith -> John Smith

'john smith'.replace(/(^\w|\s+\w){1}/g, function(str){ return str.toUpperCase() } );

user_2753071 · Answer

A solution using lodash -

import { words, lowerCase, capitalize, endsWith, padEnd } from 'lodash';
const titleCase = string =>
  padEnd(
    words(string, /[^ ]+/g)
      .map(lowerCase)
      .map(capitalize)
      .join(' '),
    string.length,
  );

user_114558 · Answer

If you'd like to use an NPM library, check out title-case:

Installation:

npm install title-case --save

Usage:

import { titleCase } from "title-case";

titleCase("string"); //=> "String"
titleCase("follow step-by-step instructions"); //=> "Follow Step-by-Step Instructions"

user_5894959 · Answer

A method use reduce

function titleCase(str) {
  const arr = str.split(" ");
  const result = arr.reduce((acc, cur) => {
    const newStr = cur[0].toUpperCase() + cur.slice(1).toLowerCase();
    return acc += `${newStr} `
  },"")
  return result.slice(0, result.length-1);
}

user_6298042 · Answer

Another approach to achieve something similar can be as follows.

formatName(name) {
    let nam = '';
    name.split(' ').map((word, index) => {
        if (index === 0) {
            nam += word.split('').map((l, i) => i === 0 ? l.toUpperCase() : l.toLowerCase()).join('');
        } else {
            nam += ' ' + word.split('').map(l => l.toLowerCase()).join('');
        }
    });
    return nam;
}

user_5314943 · Answer

ES-6 way to get title case of a word or entire line.
ex. input = 'hEllo' --> result = 'Hello'
ex. input = 'heLLo woRLd' --> result = 'Hello World'

const getTitleCase = (str) => {
  if(str.toLowerCase().indexOf(' ') > 0) {
    return str.toLowerCase().split(' ').map((word) => {
      return word.replace(word[0], word[0].toUpperCase());
    }).join(' ');
  }
  else {
    return str.slice(0, 1).toUpperCase() + str.slice(1).toLowerCase();
  }
}

user_1555696 · Answer

I think you should try with this function.

var toTitleCase = function (str) {
    str = str.toLowerCase().split(' ');
    for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
        str[i] = str[i].charAt(0).toUpperCase() + str[i].slice(1);
    }
    return str.join(' ');
};

user_7660196 · Answer

I highly recommend just using an open source NPM package if you can, this package works great in typescript:

NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/title-case

Github: https://github.com/blakeembrey/change-case/tree/master/packages/title-case#readme

Run npm install title-case to add the package to your project.

Example Code using the title-case npm package:

import { titleCase } from "title-case";

titleCase("string"); //=> "String"
titleCase("follow step-by-step instructions"); //=> "Follow Step-by-Step Instructions"

user_14647822 · Answer

My answer using regex.

for more details regex: https://regex101.com/r/AgRM3p/1

function toTitleCase(string = '') {
  const regex = /^[a-z]{0,1}|\s\w/gi;

  string = string.toLowerCase();

  string.match(regex).forEach((char) => {
    string = string.replace(char, char.toUpperCase());
  });

  return string;
}

const input = document.getElementById('fullname');
const button = document.getElementById('button');
const result = document.getElementById('result');

button.addEventListener('click', () => {
  result.innerText = toTitleCase(input.value);
});




    
    
    
    Test


    
    
    Result here

user_8671374 · Answer

No regex, no loop, no split, no substring:

String.prototype.toTitleCase = function () { return this.valueOf().toLowerCase().replace(this.valueOf()[0], this.valueOf()[0].toUpperCase()); }

console.log('laiLA'.toTitleCase());

Convert string to Title Case with JavaScript

67 Answers

Benchmark

TL;DR

Details