Casing Rules. What Words Should I Capitalize?

Our distribution partners follow the Chicago Manual of Style, a trusted and frequently updated reference of how best to display words in print, for formatting rules. We follow this guide too.

The rules for what words you should and shouldn't capitalize in your track titles vary by language. 

In many languages, including English, it is recommended to use TITLE CASING, as in: "This Is the Title of Your Track."

Some languages use SENTENCE CASING. This is the way words are generally capitalized in prose, with only the first letter of the first word capitalized. 

No language allows for a track title in all capital letters. PLEASE DO NOT WRITE YOUR TRACK TITLES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

✍🏼 Some platforms may update casing on their sites in accordance with their own guidelines. We are not able to change casing on our partners' sites, even if they have altered the casing after delivery. 

Here are the rules for what words you should capitalize in your track titles.

• English
  
• Spanish and Portuguese
  
• Swedish, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and most Eastern European Languages
• German
• Other languages

English Uses Title Casing

Prepositions of four letters or fewer should be lower-cased (at, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, to, up, and with) except when the word is part of a verb phrase or is used as another part of speech (such as an adverb, adjective, noun, or verb). Some common examples of verb phrases are "fill up", "deal with", and "long for".

These words must be lowercase: a, an, and, as, but, for, from, nor, of, or, so, the, to, yet.

Exceptions:

• The first and last word in a title must be capitalized.
• The first and last word inside parentheses must be capitalized.
• Words before and after -, /, or : must be capitalized.
• "The" must be capitalized when it is the start of an Artist Name.

The elements of hyphenated words must be capitalized except for a, an, and, for, from, of, or, the, to, and in. For example: "Down-and-Out-Blues".

Spanish and Portuguese Use Title Casing

For Spanish language albums and singles, the following words must be lowercase: a, al, de, del, e, el, en, la, las, los, o, para, por, un, una, y

For Portuguese language albums and singles, the following words must be lowercase: a, à, ao, aos, as, às, da, das, de, do, dos, e, em, na, nas, no, nos, o, os, ou, para, pela, pelas, pelo, pelos, por, um, uma

Swedish, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and most Eastern European languages use sentence casing.

This means capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and all proper nouns, only.

German uses modified Sentence Casing.

This means capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and all proper nouns. In addition, the first letter of every noun must be capitalized. Please note that you may not be able to do this yourself. This is a change that may be made by our inspection team if you are unable to submit your titles with modified sentence casing.

For German names and titles, all characters common in German orthography must be used (for example, Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü, ß). Please do not use digraphs.

For Example:  "Ihre größten Erfolge" is correct, not "Ihre groessten Erfolge".  "1000 Träume weit" is correct, not "1000 Traeume weit"

Other Languages, Please Use Title Casing

Our inspection team may modify the casing of your track titles based on the language of your album.