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.
Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!
Have you ever made a formatting change to a couple of characters or to a paragraph, only to see those changes affect text ...
Discover MoreThe Find and Replace tool is very powerful. If you need to use it many, many times in a row, however, it can quickly get ...
Discover MoreAs you type a document, Word automatically converts your quote marks and apostrophes to "curly" versions that look more ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
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!
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
Visit the WordTips channel on YouTube
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2022 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments