Tip: Easy fix for ugly mailing list formatting

If your contact list has a mix of all caps, accidental lower case names, and other goofy formatting, you can use some easy Excel functions for quick clean-up.

Here's how:

1. PROPER: This function capitalizes the first letter of each word and converts the rest to lowercase. Use this to format names correctly (e.g., "john smith" becomes "John Smith").

   • Formula: =PROPER(A2)

2. UPPER: This function converts all text to uppercase. It’s useful for formatting state abbreviations or other fields that require all caps (e.g., "ny" becomes "NY").

   • Formula: =UPPER(A2)

3. LOWER: This function converts all text to lowercase, which can be helpful for email addresses (e.g., "John.Smith@EXAMPLE.COM" becomes "john.smith@example.com").

   • Formula: =LOWER(A2)

Simply enter the formula in a new column for each applicable field, and drag it down to apply to the entire list. Then, copy and paste the values back over the original column if needed.