---
name: Sentence case
slug: sentence-case
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Capitalising only the first word of a label or heading, plus any
  proper nouns, as you would in an ordinary sentence.
aliases:
  - name: sentence-style capitalization
    source: material
  - name: normal case
tags:
  - content-design
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - title-case
    - all-caps
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: Writing style (Carbon Design System)
    url: https://carbondesignsystem.com/guidelines/content/writing-style/
  - title: Title case vs sentence case in UI
    url: https://www.everyinteraction.com/articles/title-case-vs-sentence-case-in-ui/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: Google-style UI copy and anything meant to be read
---

Sentence case is the rule of ordinary prose applied to interface text: the first
word takes a capital, proper nouns keep theirs, everything else stays down.
"Export as PDF" is sentence case, because PDF is an initialism and not a decision
the writer made, and so is "Mentions in Harbour", because Harbour is a name. The
rule is grammatical rather than mechanical, which is exactly the part CSS cannot
do for you: `text-transform: capitalize` raises every word including the ones that
should stay down, and `lowercase` flattens the names that earned their capitals.
Sentence case is written into the string, never transformed onto it.

Most of the large systems now ask for it. Material calls it sentence-style
capitalisation and applies it to buttons, dialog titles and menu items; GOV.UK
writes it into its content style guide; Carbon asks for it in headings, labels and
body copy alike. The arguments they give are consistent. Lowercase letters carry
more silhouette, so a scanned label resolves faster, which is the same shape
argument that makes [all caps](/all-caps) slow to read. Capitals in the middle of a
line are a signal that a proper noun is arriving, and spending them on ordinary
words spends the signal. And sentence case survives translation: French, Spanish
and most other languages have no title-case convention at all, so a string written
this way needs no separate decision in every locale it reaches.

[Title case](/title-case) is the alternative, and between the two the difference is
tone rather than correctness. What is not optional is picking one. Case is a system
decision applied to every string at once, because a screen where half the headings
capitalise their nouns and half do not reads as unfinished rather than as varied,
and reviewers will spend their attention on the inconsistency instead of on the
work. Write the rule down where the copy is written, not where it is styled.

The arguments that remain are about what counts as a name. A feature is a proper
noun only when the organisation has genuinely made it one, and most have not, so
"turn on dark mode" beats "turn on Dark Mode" in almost every product that ships
the sentence. The same rule runs through the smaller places people forget: column
headings in a table, the heading of an empty state, the first word after a colon,
and the labels on a segmented control are all sentences of one or two words, and
they get the capital the first word of a sentence gets, and no others.