How to capitalize only the first letter (sentence case)
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Make text start with one capital letter without capitalizing every word.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&LOWER(MID(A2,2,LEN(A2))) | PROPER capitalizes EVERY word — this does just the first character. |
| Google Sheets | =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&LOWER(MID(A2,2,LEN(A2))) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&LOWER(MID(A2,2,LEN(A2))) | Identical. |
How it works
Take the first character uppercased, then everything from position 2 lowercased, and join them: "hELLO world" becomes "Hello world". This is what people usually want when they reach for PROPER and get "Hello World" instead. Drop the LOWER wrapper if the rest of the text should keep its existing casing (acronyms, names): =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&MID(A2,2,LEN(A2)).
Verified, not just documented
We ran =UPPER(LEFT(A2,1))&LOWER(MID(A2,2,LEN(A2))) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned Hello world — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.