PROPER Function in Excel – How to use it

In this tutorial let us explore how to use PROPER Function in Excel with examples

Summary

PROPER function converts the first letter of the words to upper case and the remaining to lower case.

The PROPER function is an inbuilt worksheet function in excel which comes under the String/Text function category. This function could be used as a single function or nest it into other functions. This function could also be used in a macro (Excel VBA)

Syntax:

The syntax for the PROPER function is

=PROPER (text)

 

Arguments or Inputs

The PROPER function requires the following arguments

text:

This argument is required

This is the string to convert to PROPER case

Special characters will not be converted to PROPER case

Result:

The PROPER function will convert the text input to PROPER case.

Example

The following screenshot shows how the PROPER function is used with different input values and the result of the function.

proper function example screenshot

 

Explanation based on the above screenshot

  • Function is PROPER(A2)

A2 is the reference to the text in cell A2

The input text is all in lower case.

The PROPER function converts the first character of all words to upper case and the remaining characters to lower case.

  • Function is PROPER(A3)

A3 is the reference to the text in cell A3.

The input text is all in upper case.

The PROPER function converts the first character of all words to upper case and the remaining characters to lower case.

  • Function is PROPER(A4)

A4 is the reference to the text in cell A4.

The input is a sentence with a special character (#) and a number.

The function converts the first character ignoring the special character to upper case.

  • Function is PROPER(A5)

A5 is the reference to the text in cell A5.

The input is a sentence with a date.

The function converts the first character of all words to upper case.

  • Function is PROPER(A6)

A6 is the reference to the text in cell A6.

The input is a sentence with currency value.

The function converts the first character ignoring the dollar sign to upper case.

 

Question: Is it possible to convert a string to sentence case

Answer: There is no function in excel to convert a string to sentence case. However, we could use a nested formula with LEFT, UPPER, MID, CONCATENATE and LEN functions to get the desired result “=CONCATENATE(UPPER(LEFT(A2,1)),(MID(A2,2,(LEN(A2))-1)))”  Refer the below.

proper function example screenshot