CSS text-transform capitalize on all caps

Css Problem Overview

Here is my HTML:

<a href="#" class="link">small caps</a> & 
<a href="#" class="link">ALL CAPS</a>

Here is my CSS:

.link {text-transform: capitalize;}

The output is:

Small Caps & ALL CAPS

and I want the output to be:

Small Caps & All Caps

Any ideas?

Css Solutions

Solution 1 - Css

You can almost do it with:

.link {
  text-transform: lowercase;
}
.link:first-letter,
.link:first-line {
  text-transform: uppercase;
}

It will give you the output:

Small Caps
All Caps

Solution 2 - Css

There is no way to do this with CSS, you could use PHP or Javascript for this.

PHP example:

$text = "ALL CAPS";
$text = ucwords(strtolower($text)); // All Caps

jQuery example (it's a plugin now!):

// Uppercase every first letter of a word
jQuery.fn.ucwords = function() {
  return this.each(function(){
    var val = $(this).text(), newVal = '';
    val = val.split(' ');

    for(var c=0; c < val.length; c++) {
      newVal += val[c].substring(0,1).toUpperCase() + val[c].substring(1,val[c].length) + (c+1==val.length ? '' : ' ');
    }
    $(this).text(newVal);
  });
}

$('a.link').ucwords();

Solution 3 - Css

Convert with JavaScript using .toLowerCase() and capitalize would do the rest.

Solution 4 - Css

Interesting question!

capitalize transforms every first letter of a word to uppercase, but it does not transform the other letters to lowercase. Not even the :first-letter pseudo-class will cut it (because it applies to the first letter of each element, not each word), and I can't see a way of combining lowercase and capitalize to get the desired outcome.

So as far as I can see, this is indeed impossible to do with CSS.

@Harmen shows good-looking PHP and jQuery workarounds in his answer.

Solution 5 - Css

I'd like to sugest a pure CSS solution that is more useful than the first letter solution presented but is also very similar.

.link {
  text-transform: lowercase;

display: inline-block; }

.link::first-line {
  text-transform: capitalize;
}

<div class="link">HELLO WORLD!</div>
<p class="link">HELLO WORLD!</p>
<a href="#" class="link">HELLO WORLD!  ( now working! )</a>

Although this is limited to the first line it may be useful for more use cases than the first letter solution since it applies capitalization to the whole line and not only the first word. (all words in the first line) In the OP's specific case this could have solved it.

Notes: As mentioned in the first letter solution comments, the order of the CSS rules is important! Also note that I changed the <a> tag for a <div> tag because for some reason the pseudo-element ::first-line doesn't work with <a> tags natively but either <div> or <p> are fine. EDIT: the <a> element will work if display: inline-block; is added to the .link class. Thanks to Dave Land for spotting that!

New Note: if the text wraps it will loose the capitalization because it is now in fact on the second line (first line is still ok).

Solution 6 - Css

JavaScript:

var links = document.getElementsByClassName("link");
for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
  links[i].innerHTML = links[i].innerHTML.toLowerCase();
}

CSS:

.link { text-transform: capitalize; }

What Khan "ended up doing" (which is cleaner and worked for me) is down in the comments of the post marked as the answer.

Solution 7 - Css

captialize only effects the first letter of the word. http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/text.html#propdef-text-transform

Solution 8 - Css

You can do it with css first-letter! eg I wanted it for the Menu:

a {display:inline-block; text-transorm:uppercase;}
a::first-letter {font-size:50px;}

It only runs with block elements - therefore the inline-block!

Solution 9 - Css

May be useful for java and jstl.

Initialize variable with localized message.
After that it is possible to use it in jstl toLowerCase function.
Transform with CSS.

In JSP

<fmt:message key="some.key" var="item"/>

<div class="content">

  <a href="#">${fn:toLowerCase(item)}</a>
</div>

In CSS

.content {

  text-transform:capitalize;
}

Solution 10 - Css

If the data is coming from a database, as in my case, you can lower it before sending it to a select list/drop down list. Shame you can't do it in CSS.

Solution 11 - Css

After researching a lot I found jquery function/expression to change text in first letter in uppercase only, I modify that code accordingly to make it workable for input field. When you will write something in input field and then move to another filed or element, the text of that field will change with 1st-letter capitalization only. No matter user type text in complete lower or upper case capitalization:

Follow this code:

Step-1: Call jquery library in html head:

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>

Step-2: Write code to change text of input fields:

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
$("#edit-submitted-first-name,#edit-submitted-last-name,#edit-submitted-company-name, #edit-submitted-city").focusout(function(){
var str=$(this).val();
str = str.toLowerCase().replace(/\b[a-z]/g, function(letter) {
    return letter.toUpperCase();
});
$(this).val(str);
 });});
 
 </script>

Step-3: Create HTML input fields with same id's you use in jquery code like:

<input type="text" id="edit-submitted-first-name" name="field name">

The id of this input field is: edit-submitted-first-name (It using in jquery code in step-2)

**Result: Make sure the text will change after you move your focus from that input field at another element. Because we using focus out event of jquery here. Result should like this: User Type: "thank you" it will change with "Thank You". **

Best of luck

Solution 12 - Css

The PHP solution, in backend:

$string = 'UPPERCASE';
$lowercase = strtolower($string);
echo ucwords($lowercase);

Solution 13 - Css

I know this is a late response but if you want to compare the performance of various solutions I have a jsPerf that I created.

Regex solutions are the fastest for sure.

Here is the jsPerf: https://jsperf.com/capitalize-jwaz

There are 2 regex solutions.

The first one uses/\b[a-z]/g. Word boundary will capital words such as non-disclosure to Non-Disclosure.

If you only want to capitalize letters that are preceded by a space then use the second regex

/(^[a-z]|\s[a-z])/g

Solution 14 - Css

if you are using jQuery; this is one a way to do it:

$('.link').each(function() {
    $(this).css('text-transform','capitalize').text($(this).text().toLowerCase());
});

Here is an easier to read version doing the same thing:

//Iterate all the elements in jQuery object
$('.link').each(function() {

    //get text from element and make it lower-case
    var string = $(this).text().toLowerCase();

    //set element text to the new string that is lower-case
    $(this).text(string);

    //set the css to capitalize
    $(this).css('text-transform','capitalize');
});

Demo

Solution 15 - Css

all wrong it does exist --> font-variant: small-caps;

text-transform:capitalize; just the first letter cap

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Khan	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Css	Philihp Busby	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Css	Harmen	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Css	ronnyfm	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Css	Pekka	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Css	JDuarteDJ	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Css	ryanttb	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Css	prodigitalson	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Css	Johannes	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Css	ekar	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Css	JohnnyBizzle	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Css	A.Aleem11	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Css	Fellipe Sanches	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Css	Zerry Hogan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Css	fooaldrin	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Css	Orlando	View Answer on Stackoverflow