Case Converter (including Title Case) - now working on MacOS 12.3

[dfay]

Updated March 26, 2022 to use Python 3 for MacOS 12.3 

 

Now featuring Universal Action triggers and hotkeys for the following five actions:

 

Uppercase

Lowercase

Capitalize - capitalizes all words (e.g. Posting A New Topic In Share Your Workflows)

Title Case - capitalizes word except for "the", "in", "of" etc. according to American English title conventions (e.g. Posting a New Topic in Share Your Workflows)

Sentence Case - capitalizes only the first letter of the first word & converts the rest to lower case

 

All of these are set to Copy to Clipboard and Paste by default.

 

There's also a script filter cc which lets you view the query converted and select your choice (like the Code Case workflow).

 

You can also connect a hot key directly to the cc script filter directly to view the output options without typing the cc command and pasting your text.

 

 

Download:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fydkkef1t699et/Case Converter 3.alfredworkflow?dl=0

 

NB This is a new link and will download as a new workflow - you'll need to migrate any hotkeys and delete or disable the older version.

 

Here's the old Python 2 version in case anyone wants it:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3k2lh21g5wnqrkp/Case Converter 2.alfredworkflow?dl=0

 

The original version is described below and still available, if anyone prefers it.

 

Workflow Version:

 

This workflow converts the case of the text on the clipboard.

 

http://dfay.fastmail.fm/alfred/Case%20Converter.alfredworkflow

 

There are two workflows which display the following five options:

 

Uppercase

Lowercase

Capitalize - capitalizes all words (e.g. Posting A New Topic In Share Your Workflows)

Title Case - capitalizes word except for "the", "in", "of" etc. according to American English title conventions (e.g. Posting a New Topic in Share Your Workflows)

Sentence Case - capitalizes only the first letter of the first word & converts the rest to lower case

 

The keyword case will transform the text on the clipboard without pasting the result.

The keyword casep will transform the text on the clipboard and paste (using Applescript System Events)

 

Hotkey Version:

 

Here is a version for use with hotkeys which will operate on the active selection in OS X and paste it with the converted text.  These all have a half second delay prior to pasting, which is necessary for Applescript to be able to paste.

 

http://dfay.fastmail.fm/alfred/Case%20Hotkeys.alfredworkflow

 

Notes and Revision History:

 

These use the Title Case perl script found at https://raw.github.com/ap/titlecase/master/titlecase .

 

If you manage academic citations with BibDesk, Zotero, Papers, Mendeley, etc., Title Case conversion is especially useful for cleaning up downloaded citations.

 

Updated May 3, 2013 with nicer colored icon thanks to mjv ( http://www.alfredforum.com/user/4384-mjv/ )

 

Updated February 5, 2014 to handle Sentence Case and to add a second keyword to paste after conversion.

 

Updated May 20, 2014 with hotkeys

Edited June 3, 2023 by dfay
update re python 3

[nickvitale]

This is awesome! I have searched high and low for an easy way to do this. Applescripts, Alfred workflows, clipboard tricks, macros, entire applications, dashboard tools, Apple services, workflows, ... I think I made my point.

 

I just wanted something easy.

 

This is it. You have, literally, solved a multi-year search for a simple way to convert text to different cases.

 

Also.. I'm not a coder, programmer or anything else so even if I found that github installation, I'd fail to make it work. 

 

Thank you again!

[dfay]

Thanks!  I was in the same situation - I had Services, BibDesk applescript, OnMyCommand commands, etc. but a lot of them were context-specific and in locations that didn't sync from one computer to another, so an Alfred workflow seemed like the perfect way to put it all in one place.

[yoose]

Thanks, this is really useful! Since you guys mentioned that you were looking for other methods, there is an app that has the similar functionality through an extension, Popclip http://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ It is pretty convenient as it is automatically appears, iOS style, if you use your keyboard to select text and do not want to use the mouse, you can easily create a hotkey to have alfred make the menu appear, which is what I have done.

[hzlzh]

Good one, share it on the list below.

[lmartins]

Excellent, thanks!.

[nickvitale]

Thanks, this is really useful! Since you guys mentioned that you were looking for other methods, there is an app that has the similar functionality through an extension, Popclip http://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ It is pretty convenient as it is automatically appears, iOS style, if you use your keyboard to select text and do not want to use the mouse, you can easily create a hotkey to have alfred make the menu appear, which is what I have done.

 

In fact I have this app.  I like it. At home on my Retina it's no problem to have running 24/7 but at work I have to count every, single, megabyte of RAM used and I have to use it carefully.  Also, Popclip costs something, something that should cost nothing considering the 'power' a Mac has, even in Applescript, it's astounding that there isn't one really good service or script for something like this. Running an entire app, though filled with other features, is a bit crazy for this single feature.

 

However, I take your point. It's definitely a valid solution, especially for either casual users or people that have enough RAM to validate the use of.  I have used it, at home, and it has a lot of great plugins that offer a big increase in functionality like the Evernote integration. 

 

Thanks

[yoose]

In fact I have this app.  I like it. At home on my Retina it's no problem to have running 24/7 but at work I have to count every, single, megabyte of RAM used and I have to use it carefully.  Also, Popclip costs something, something that should cost nothing considering the 'power' a Mac has, even in Applescript, it's astounding that there isn't one really good service or script for something like this. Running an entire app, though filled with other features, is a bit crazy for this single feature.

 

However, I take your point. It's definitely a valid solution, especially for either casual users or people that have enough RAM to validate the use of.  I have used it, at home, and it has a lot of great plugins that offer a big increase in functionality like the Evernote integration. 

 

Thanks

 

I agree it is a great little program and has great plugins, cant wait to see what else comes up. I also feel like it should be in OS X seeing as how its inspired by iOS, but am grateful that it is not too expensive.

[kithairon]

Very sweet. Thanks for this! Use it with my bibliography tool.

[Davide]

Thanks for this also!

Is it possible to get it work also with special charakters like the Germans ä, ö, ü, ß?

[dfay]

I've looked quickly at some options using Perl and Python (as well as bash tr , the existing approach) & none of them have worked for me....I'm not an expert in either though.

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1054470

 

http://bioinfo2.ugr.es/documentation/Perl_Cookbook/ch01_10.htm

 

Both of these work for unaccented characters, but not for accented.

 

If you can find a script that works, hooking it into the workflow should be trivial.

[iNyar]

Hi,

 

Great workflow, really ! It's great to have this. Thanks a lot.

 

Only a small suggestion: I'd like a 5th option : Sentence Case : only the first letter of the sentence would be capitalized (useful especially for French titles, which only use a capital on the first word).

[MxmHrpr]

Hi,

 

Great workflow, really ! It's great to have this. Thanks a lot.

 

Only a small suggestion: I'd like a 5th option : Sentence Case : only the first letter of the sentence would be capitalized (useful especially for French titles, which only use a capital on the first word).

 

+1 on this addition, especially useful when my lecturer has his powerpoints in solid caps...

[juanpazos]

How do I make the text, after converted, be automatically pasted on where the cursor is (without the need of pressing Cmd+V)?

 

Thanks

[juanpazos]

One more thing: accentuated caracters (like "á", "ó", "ã" , "ç") don't get converted at all. The bastards stay the same.

 

Is there a fix for that?

[dfay]

Updated February 5, 2014 to handle Sentence Case and to add a second keyword to paste after conversion.

 

On accented characters, see my post of 7/1/2013.  

 

Cheers

Derick

[Davide]

Devon offers an plugin called WordService, it works also with special characters.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Davide

[dfay]

Updated to add a version set up for use with hotkeys.

[deanishe]

I've looked quickly at some options using Perl and Python (as well as bash tr , the existing approach) & none of them have worked for me....I'm not an expert in either though.

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1054470

 

http://bioinfo2.ugr.es/documentation/Perl_Cookbook/ch01_10.htm

 

Both of these work for unaccented characters, but not for accented.

 

If you can find a script that works, hooking it into the workflow should be trivial.

 

Python works perfectly, but only with Unicode, not encoded strings:

print('UTF-8 strings\n')

for s in ['über außer', 'öffnungszeiten für morgen']:
    print(s.title())
    print(s.upper())

print('\nUnicode\n')

for s in [u'über außer', u'öffnungszeiten für morgen']:
    print(s.title())
    print(s.upper())

outputs:

UTF-8 strings

üBer AußEr
üBER AUßER
öFfnungszeiten FüR Morgen
öFFNUNGSZEITEN FüR MORGEN

Unicode

Über Außer
ÜBER AUßER
Öffnungszeiten Für Morgen
ÖFFNUNGSZEITEN FÜR MORGEN

[indros]

Terrific.  Thank you!

[PhilosopherDog]

Hi, do you have a link to the May version? I only see the latest link to the Feb version. BTW, nice workflow! Thanx.

Edited August 26, 2014 by PhilosopherDog

[patrickmcd]

Awesome. But I'm here to beg for more. All the options here would be nice: titlecase.com

 

Camel, Pascal, Hyphen, and Snake would be great additions for coders, camelCase being the reason I searched for a workflow.

[dfay]

Hi, do you have a link to the May version? I only see the latest link to the Feb version. BTW, nice workflow! Thanx.

It's there - it's the second link in the post - I've updated the initial post to make it clearer that there are two different download links.

[dfay]

@patrickmcd I'll do this in a separate workflow

[mixterdee]

Great little workflow and very useful for me, something I will use many times a day. Thanks