What PROPER does
PROPER capitalizes the first letter in a text string and letters that follow non-letter characters, while converting the remaining letters to lowercase. It is useful for cleaning names, titles, and labels that arrive in inconsistent case.
Practical examples
Convert text in a cell to proper case
=PROPER(A2)
This is useful when imported names or titles are in all caps or random case.
Normalize a typed phrase
=PROPER("2-way street")
This returns a proper-cased version of the phrase while keeping number-led segments intact.
Common mistakes and notes
PROPER is not language-aware title casing
It changes letters after non-letter characters, which can produce results that are technically correct for Excel but not always ideal for names or branded words.
Numbers and punctuation affect capitalization boundaries
That is why strings like 2-way street and 76budget can produce results you may want to review manually.