How does Dutch capitalise titles?

Dutch uses sentence-style capitalisation for titles: only the first word and any proper nouns get a capital letter. Articles like de and het, prepositions like van and op, conjunctions like en, and ordinary nouns all stay lowercase in the middle of a title, unlike English headline case.

What happens with words starting with ij?

The Dutch digraph ij behaves as a single letter, so when a word like ijsland is capitalised at the start of a title it becomes IJsland with both letters uppercase. The tool applies this automatically so you do not get the incorrect Ijsland.

How do I keep proper nouns capitalised?

Two ways. Keep the option that preserves any word you already typed with a capital, which catches names you wrote correctly. Or add proper nouns to the list, one per line, and they are capitalised wherever they appear in the title.

Why is only the first word capitalised by default?

Because that is the Dutch convention. English readers expect most words capitalised, but Dutch titles read like a sentence. The tool deliberately lowercases mid-title words unless they are proper nouns so the output matches Dutch style guides.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. All processing happens locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, so it is safe for unpublished titles and private documents.

Dutch Title Case — Gera Tools

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This tool converts a Dutch title or heading to correct Dutch capitalisation. Dutch does not use English-style headline case where almost every word is capitalised. Instead it uses sentence case, and getting that right makes titles look native rather than translated.

How it works

The tool lowercases the title and then capitalises only two things: the first word, and any word identified as a proper noun. Everything else — articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and common nouns — stays lowercase:

de reis naar ijsland en terug  ->  De reis naar IJsland en terug

Notice two details in that example. The first word de is capitalised because it leads the title. And ijsland becomes IJsland: the Dutch digraph ij is one letter, so both characters capitalise together. Proper nouns are detected either from a custom list you provide or by preserving words you already typed with a capital.

Tips and example

Add place names, brand names, and people’s names to the proper-noun list so they survive the lowercasing, for example Amsterdam or Nederland. Keep the preserve-capitals option on if you have already capitalised names correctly in your draft. If you turn that option off, every mid-title word lowercases unless it is in your list, which is useful for cleaning up text that was wrongly title-cased in English style.