How to Change Capital Letters in an Email

Changing the capitalization of text in your email can be done through various methods, whether you're typing new content or modifying existing text. The approach often depends on the email client or platform you are using.

Quick Methods to Adjust Text Case

For efficient case changes, especially within Microsoft Office applications like Outlook, keyboard shortcuts and built-in features are your best tools.

Using Keyboard Shortcuts (SHIFT+F3)

One of the quickest ways to change the case of selected text is by using a simple keyboard shortcut.

Select the text you wish to modify within your email draft.
Press SHIFT+F3 repeatedly until the desired case style is applied. This shortcut cycles through three common styles:
- Sentence case: (e.g., "This is an example.")
- ALL CAPS: (e.g., "THIS IS AN EXAMPLE.")
- lowercase: (e.g., "this is an example.")

This shortcut is particularly useful in Microsoft Outlook and other Microsoft Office applications like Word.

Leveraging Email Client Features (e.g., Microsoft Outlook)

Microsoft Outlook, as part of the Office suite, offers a dedicated "Change Case" button in its ribbon for more precise control over text capitalization.

Select the text whose case you want to change.
Navigate to the Format Text tab in the Outlook message ribbon.
In the "Font" group, click the "Change Case" button (often represented by an "Aa" icon).
From the dropdown menu, choose one of the following options:
- Sentence case. (Capitalizes the first letter of the selected sentence.)
- lowercase (Changes all selected letters to lowercase.)
- UPPERCASE (Changes all selected letters to uppercase.)
- Capitalize Each Word (Converts the first letter of each word to uppercase; also known as Title Case.)
- tOGGLE cASE (Switches the case of each selected letter, e.g., "hELLO wORLD" becomes "Hello World" or "hELLO wORLD" becomes "Hello World").

For more details on text formatting in Outlook, you can refer to Microsoft's official support documentation.

Case Management in Other Email Platforms

Many web-based email clients, like Gmail, do not offer a direct "Change Case" button within their composing interface. However, there are effective workarounds.

Gmail and Web-Based Clients

Since Gmail and most other webmail services don't have a built-in case change feature, you'll need to use an external tool or method:

Copy to a Word Processor:
1. Copy the text from your email draft.
2. Paste it into a word processing application like Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
3. Use the word processor's built-in case change features (as described for Outlook, or similar options in Google Docs under Format > Text > Capitalization).
4. Copy the corrected text back into your email.
Browser Extensions: Various browser extensions are available that can add case-changing functionality to web-based text fields. Search your browser's extension store for "text case converter" or "change case."

Typing Capital Letters as You Go

For new text, the simplest way to manage capitalization is by using your keyboard's standard functions:

SHIFT Key: Hold down the Shift key while typing a letter to make just that letter a capital. This is useful for capitalizing the first letter of a sentence or proper nouns.
CAPS LOCK Key: Press the Caps Lock key once to type all letters in uppercase until you press it again to turn it off. This is ideal for typing entire words or sentences in all caps.

Summary Table of Case Change Options

Method	Applies To	How It Works
SHIFT+F3 Shortcut	Selected text in MS Office (Outlook, Word)	Cycles through Sentence case, ALL CAPS, and lowercase
Outlook's "Change Case"	Selected text in Microsoft Outlook	Provides a dropdown menu with specific options (Sentence, lowercase, UPPERCASE, etc.)
Manual Typing	New text being entered	Use `Shift` for single capital letters, `Caps Lock` for continuous uppercase
Copy-Paste Workaround	Any email client (especially web-based)	Paste text into a word processor, change case, then paste back into email