Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Rotating a Page of Text.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 16, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365
Have you ever wanted to rotate the text in your Word document 90 degrees in relation to your headers and footers? As has been discussed in other WordTips, there are a couple of ways to do this using Word's native capabilities. (You can insert a text box and rotate the text within that textbox, insert a table and rotate the text within a cell, or use WordArt.) Any of these methods can be quite cumbersome and time consuming to set up and get aligned properly.
However, if you use the fact that Microsoft started including Far East language support in Word 2000, you can rotate an entire section of text clockwise, 90 degrees to your headers and footers.
To rotate the text, follow these steps:
Selection.Orientation = wdTextOrientationVerticalFarEast
Now your text is rotated 90 degrees to your headers and footers. Your page that contains the rotated text has had its layout changed to landscape mode, as well. You can use the Page Setup dialog box to change the page to portrait mode, and the text will still be rotated on the page.
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11797) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Rotating a Page of Text.
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2022-11-16 13:08:28
Austin
In response to Sara's question, you can align the text to the left side of the page by setting vertical alignment of the page layout to Bottom: Alt+o, u (Page Setup dialog), Layout tab, Vertical Alignment dropdown=Bottom, Enter. If you want to align the text down the middle of the page, you can use the same method.
2018-06-11 11:43:10
Pamela
Very interesting, and could be useful in some of the docs I work on. However...it seems that the default rotation is 90 degrees to the right. How can it be rotated to the left? Thank you.
2018-06-11 10:56:47
Sara Bries
Thanks for this great tip. I tested it on an existing document, and found that it "flips" the text so that it is aligned to the right margin on the page. Is there a way to flip the text so that it is aligned along the left margin?
Thanks for your work!
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