In Visual Basic for Applications, commonly known as VBA, there’s this nifty little feature that’s become one of my go-to tools when I’m working with text in Microsoft Excel—it’s called the UCASE function. What it does is pretty straightforward but super useful. It takes whatever string you feed it and turns all the characters into uppercase. It’s like hitting the caps lock key for text in code, which can be a lifesaver for formatting and standardizing text data.

Just like Excel’s own UPPER function, UCASE is part of my arsenal for ensuring consistency when I’m knee-deep in Excel spreadsheets. Sometimes when I’m comparing strings or doing data entry, having everything in caps just makes things clearer and avoids the classic case-sensitive pitfalls. Plus, it gives a neat, uniform look to everything—because let’s face it, who doesn’t love a bit of order in their data?

Syntax

In VBA, when I need to convert a string to all uppercase letters, I use the UCase function. Here’s the straightforward way it works:

UCase(string)
  • string: This is the text I want to transform to uppercase.

For instance, the result of UCase("Hello World") would be:

HELLO WORLD

And that’s pretty much it; the UCase function does the trick every time, making sure everything turns into those big, bold letters. Just a quick note: it’s all about VBA, so don’t try this with other programming languages expecting the same result!

Arguments

  • String: I specify the text that’s getting the all-caps treatment.
  • Arguments:
    • Only the string parameter is needed, and here’s what goes with it:
      • Any valid string expression, basically the words I want in uppercase.
      • If I pass in Null, I’ll get Null back—no change.

Formats characters in the string to uppercase if they’re lowercase; leaves other characters (like nonletter characters and punctuation) and already uppercase text alone.

Argument Description Type
string Text to transform to capital letters Variant (String)

Remember, I’m dealing with a string argument, which means it has to be text (variable or literal).

Example

Sub example_UCASE()
    ' Convert text in A1 to uppercase and put result in B1
    Range("B1").Value = UCase(Range("A1"))    
End Sub

In this macro code, I:

  • Define a subroutine called example_UCASE.
  • Use the UCase function to convert the contents of cell A1 to uppercase.
  • Assign the uppercase result to cell B1.
Action Item Code Sample
Define Subroutine Sub example_UCASE()
Convert to Uppercase UCase(Range("A1"))
Assign Output Range("B1").Value

This straightforward piece of VBA code shows a simple use of UCase to modify cell values in Excel.

Notes

  • UCASE: Converts lowercase letters to uppercase.
  • Punctuation and numbers are unaffected.
  • Not suitable for Null data; returns Null.
  • Use LCase for opposite effect (to lowercase).
  • Loop through worksheet quickly with For Loop.
  • Message Box can display uppercase conversion result.
  • Combine with INSTR for string manipulation.
  • StrConv: Alternative for VBProperCase or VBLowerCase.
  • Disable EnableEvents to speed up loops in large data sets.
  • Excel 2003 compatible.

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