Microsoft Word features an extensive AutoCorrect engine designed to instantly fix common typographical errors as you type. One of these built-in rules is specifically designed to enforce proper noun grammar: if you type a day of the week (monday, tuesday, wednesday) with a lowercase first letter, Word will instantly and automatically capitalize it the moment you press the spacebar.
While this is generally helpful for writing standard essays and business memos, it can be incredibly frustrating if you are writing computer code documentation, poetry, or highly stylized marketing copy where strict lowercase formatting is an absolute stylistic requirement.
If you want to maintain complete manual control over your capitalization, you can easily turn off the day-of-the-week AutoCorrect rule.
How to Disable Day Capitalization in Word
You can turn off this specific rule without affecting the rest of Word’s spell-checking capabilities.
- Open a document in Microsoft Word.
- Click on File in the top-left corner of the ribbon.
- Click on Options at the very bottom of the left sidebar.
- In the Word Options window, select Proofing from the left-hand navigation pane.
- Near the top of the Proofing pane, locate and click the AutoCorrect Options… button.
- A new dialog box will appear. Ensure you are on the AutoCorrect tab.
- Look at the list of checkboxes in the top half of this window.
- Find the option labeled Capitalize names of days.
- Uncheck this box.
- Click OK to close the AutoCorrect window, and then click OK again to close the Word Options window.
From now on, if you type “friday” with a lowercase ‘f’, Microsoft Word will leave it exactly as you typed it. It will not autocorrect the word, though depending on your grammar settings, it may still place a blue squiggly line underneath it as a soft suggestion.