Hyphenated Word Capitalization in Titles

The project rule is component based

All five title profiles convert “state-of-the-art tools” to “State-of-the-Art Tools.” The first component State is capitalized. Internal of and the remain lowercase because they are a recognized preposition and article. Art is capitalized as a major component. The same rule produces “Mother-in-Law Stories,” with internal in lowercase and Law uppercase.

Tool Packer splits a recognized compound at each supported hyphen, processes the word components, and rejoins them without changing the separators. A built-in or custom canonical term takes priority, followed by preserved acronyms. The first ordinary component is capitalized; later articles, coordinating conjunctions, and recognized prepositions are lowercased; other later components are capitalized.

Acronyms, prefixes, and short components expose the boundary

The input “api-driven design” becomes “API-Driven Design” because API is in the project’s preserved acronym set and Driven is a major component. “anti-intellectual pursuits” becomes “Anti-Intellectual Pursuits.” Tool Packer does not label anti as a lowercase prefix and does not reproduce an edition-specific exception table; it simply applies the shared component rule.

This distinction matters because complete manuals may treat prefixes, spelled-out numbers, fractions, phrasal compounds, and parts of speech differently. Chicago’s eighteenth edition, for example, changed its title treatment for subsequent elements in certain hyphenated terms beginning with a prefix. The project’s output can coincide with that example without claiming to implement the manual’s entire compound system.

• Canonical acronym: API-Driven.
• Ordinary prefix fixture: Anti-Intellectual.
• Internal minor words: State-of-the-Art and Mother-in-Law.

Three hyphen characters are preserved and tested

The converter recognizes ASCII hyphen-minus (-, U+002D), Unicode hyphen (‐, U+2010), and nonbreaking hyphen (‑, U+2011) inside compounds. It produces equivalent capitalization for “state-of-the-art,” “state‐of‐the‐art,” and “state‑of‑the‑art” while preserving whichever separator the user supplied. This avoids silently changing copy that requires a nonbreaking character for layout.

An en dash (–, U+2013) and em dash (—, U+2014) are not hyphens in this compound parser. The em dash is separately recognized as a title boundary, while the en dash is preserved without that restart. Similar appearance does not imply interchangeable semantics, so paste-sensitive workflows should inspect the actual character when a compound or boundary behaves unexpectedly.

• Recognized compounds: -, ‐, and ‑.
• Not compound hyphens: – and —.
• Original separator characters remain unchanged in the output.

Capitalization cannot decide whether to hyphenate

Hyphenation depends on meaning, placement, dictionary treatment, ambiguity, language, and house style. A compound modifier before a noun can need punctuation that the same phrase does not use after the noun, and an established open or closed compound can override a generic pattern. Tool Packer cases the punctuation it receives; it does not insert missing hyphens, remove unnecessary ones, or replace a hyphen with an en dash.

Tool Packer is independent and is not endorsed by any named style-guide publisher. Use its repeatable output as an editing aid, then consult the governing dictionary and current guide for whether the compound is correctly formed and how specialized components should be cased. Preserve official product names and technical identifiers with authoritative spelling or request-scoped custom terms.

• Decide compound spelling before capitalization.
• Check ambiguity and grammatical placement.
• Let authoritative names and house rules take precedence.