Change first cap to lowercase, leave everything else alone

[KarenR]

I use voice recognition software to dictate into Excel for a database and, ultimately, mail merge into a report. The VR software always caps the first letter. Some cells in my Excel database represent part of a sentence and the first word should not be capped.

I need a macro or code that would make the first letter of the first word in a cell to lower case and leave everything else in the cell alone. Then, I need to be able to apply it to most but not all of the 188 fields in my database.

I am a near total novice at this. I have made some macros to automate tasks but I'm lost with this. Any help appreciated.

 

[James_B]

To illustrate one approach, trying selecting some cells and running the following

dim rCell as range
for each rCell in selection
   rCell.value = lcase$(mid$(rCell.value, 1, 1)) & mid$(rCell.value, 2)
next rCell

 

[hiker95]

KarenR,

Welcome to the MrExcel board.

If you wanted to apply it to most but not all of the 188 fields, in this example, just to column A and C.


Before the macro:

Excel Workbook
	A	B	C
1	Field 1	Field 2	Field 3
2	KarenR	A	KarenR
3	Location: Ohio	B	KarenR
4	Posts: 1	C	KarenR
5	Change first cap to lowercase	D	KarenR
6	I use voice recognition software to dictate into Excel	E	KarenR
7
Sheet1

After the macro:

Excel Workbook
	A	B	C
1	Field 1	Field 2	Field 3
2	karenR	A	karenR
3	location: Ohio	B	karenR
4	posts: 1	C	karenR
5	change first cap to lowercase	D	karenR
6	i use voice recognition software to dictate into Excel	E	karenR
7
Sheet1

Please TEST this FIRST in a COPY of your workbook (always make a backup copy before trying new code, you never know what you might lose).

Adding the Macro
1. Copy the below macro, by highlighting the macro code and pressing the keys CTRL + C
2. Open your workbook
3. Press the keys ALT + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor
4. Press the keys ALT + I to activate the Insert menu
5. Press M to insert a Standard Module
6. Paste the code by pressing the keys CTRL + V
7. Press the keys ALT + Q to exit the Editor, and return to Excel

Option Explicit
Option Base 1
Sub FirstCharLower()
Dim c As Range, ColArray() As Variant, a As Long
ColArray = Array("A", "C")
For a = LBound(ColArray) To UBound(ColArray)
  For Each c In Range(ColArray(a) & 2, Range(ColArray(a) & Rows.Count).End(xlUp))
    c = LCase(Mid(c, 1, 1)) & Mid(c, 2)
  Next c
Next a
End Sub

Then run the "FirstCharLower" macro.

 

[mikerickson]

would the formula

=LOWER(LEFT(A1,1)) & MID(A1,2,1000) do what you want?