Change Text Case in Emacs

To change the letter case in Emacs:

• M-u - (upcase-word) - will convert following word to UPPER case (or the rest of the current word).

• M-l - (downcase-word) - will convert following word to lower case (or the rest of the current word).

• M-c - (capitalize-word) - will Capitalize the following word (or the rest of the current word).

For example, consider the text The quick brown fox jumped.

If you position the cursor on the q (fifth column), then M-u changes quick to QUICK, M-c changes quick to Quick, etc.

If you position the cursor on the u (sixth column), then M-u changes quick to qUICK, M-c changes quick to qUick, etc.

One could probably write an elisp function based on (capitalize-word) and some heuristics or dictionary look-ups to create a true title case function (e.g., not capitalize a, an, the in the middle of a phrase), but M-c is a quick and easy approximation.

Also, note that there is a version of upcase and downcase that work on the selection (region) instead of the next word.

• C-x C-u - (upcase-region)

• C-x C-l - (downcase-region)

Of course, if you're using "CUA Keys", you can't easily type C-x without invoking "cut".