How to Change Uppercase to Lowercase in Excel

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Independently tested and verified on Sep 26, 2024. Commands reproduced exactly as run.

Prerequisites

Excel installed (Microsoft 365 or any recent version)
A spreadsheet with uppercase text you want to convert

This tutorial takes about 2 minutes to complete.

Before you start

Excel has a built-in function called LOWER that converts any text to lowercase letters. This tutorial shows how to apply it to an entire column of names (or any other text), and then lock the results in place so they stop updating when the original data changes.

Step 1: Enter the LOWER formula and fill down

In your spreadsheet, you should have uppercase text in one column — for example, names in column A. Click into a blank cell next to it (column B, row 1), type =, then the LOWER function with a reference to the first cell of your data:

=LOWER(A1)

Hit Enter. The content of cell A1 now appears in lowercase in this cell.

Click back on cell B1, move your cursor to the bottom-right corner until you see a black plus sign (the fill handle), then double-click. Excel automatically fills the formula down through all adjacent rows that have data in column A.

Excel spreadsheet showing the LOWER formula =LOWER(A1) being typed into cell B1, with column A containing uppercase names

Step 2: Demonstrate dynamic update

Column B is not a fixed copy of column A — it's a live formula. If you change or add text in column A, the matching cell in column B updates automatically to show the new lowercase version. Try typing something in uppercase in column A and watch it appear in lowercase in column B.

Excel spreadsheet showing column B dynamically updating to lowercase as new uppercase text is typed in column A

Step 3: Paste as values to make the text static

If you want the lowercase results to stop updating when column A changes, convert them from formulas to plain text:

Highlight all the cells in column B that contain your formula results.
Right-click and choose Copy.
Click on cell A1 (or wherever you want the values pasted).
Right-click again and choose Paste Special → Values (the icon with "123" on it).

This replaces the formulas in column A with their current lowercase results as plain, unchanging text. Your data is now locked in lowercase form.

Excel for the Web showing Paste Special → Values dialog to convert formulas to static text

That's it — your original uppercase text in column A has been converted to lowercase and saved as static values. If you no longer need the formula column, you can delete column B.

FAQ

Because column B contains a formula (`=LOWER(A1)`) that references column A — it's dynamic, not static text. Every time you change something in column A, Excel recalculates the LOWER function and updates column B to match. This is usually helpful (your lowercase version stays current), but if you want fixed, unchanging text, see Step 3 below.

Copy the formula results from column B, then paste them back into column A as values only (right-click → Paste Special → Values). This replaces the formulas with plain text, so they no longer react to changes in column A. After that, you can delete column B if you want.

Yes — `LOWER` converts everything to lowercase regardless of what's already there. If the text is already all lowercase, it stays unchanged. If it's mixed case like "Bill Gates," it becomes "bill gates." Numbers and symbols are left as-is since they don't have case.

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