Chicago Style capitalizes all major words, while sentence case capitalizes only the first word and proper nouns. Sentence case is dominant in British publishing and digital products.
Chicago Style capitalizes all major words and long prepositions while lowercasing short prepositions of four letters or fewer, articles, and coordinating conjunctions. It is the dominant style for American book publishing.
Chicago Style is required for most manuscripts submitted to book publishers, literary journals, and academic presses. Scholars in the humanities default to it.
Open Chicago Style converterSentence case capitalizes only the first word of a title or heading and any proper nouns, treating the text exactly like a sentence. It is the dominant style in British English and digital product interfaces.
Sentence case is the standard for user interfaces, navigation menus, software documentation, and most British publications. Many technology companies mandate it for product copy.
Open Sentence Case converterChicago Style is required for most manuscripts submitted to book publishers, literary journals, and academic presses. Scholars in the humanities default to it.
Prepositions of five or more letters are capitalized. Short prepositions like in, on, at, by, and of remain lowercase.
Sentence case is the standard for user interfaces, navigation menus, software documentation, and most British publications. Many technology companies mandate it for product copy.
All words after the first are lowercase unless they are proper nouns. Common nouns, verbs, and adjectives are not capitalized.
Choose Chicago Style for American book publishing, academic journals, and manuscripts submitted to publishers.
Choose sentence case for British publications, software documentation, and digital interfaces.
The divide largely follows American versus British publishing conventions. American book publishers use Chicago Style, while British publishers and technology companies use sentence case.