This article shows you how to rotate text in Microsoft Word

This article was originally published in Woody's Office Watch Vol 8 No 30 on 6 August 2003.
 

1. Make sure Word is in Print View (click View | Page Layout in Word 97 or View | Print Layout in Word 2000, 2002 or 2003). Type anything you want to appear before and after the rotated text. Click where you want the rotated text to go, then click Insert | Object | Create New.
2. Click Microsoft Excel Worksheet. (In Word 97, you also have to clear the box marked Float Over Text.) Click OK. Word creates an Excel spreadsheet and sticks it in your document.
3. Click on cell A1 (that's the box in the upper left corner) and type the text you want to appear rotated. Hit Enter, then right-click on cell A1 and pick Format Cells | Alignment.
4. Use the Orientation box to rotate the text at whatever angle you like. Click OK.
5. Next, trim down the size of the cell so it's just barely as big as the text. Move your mouse over the "A" above cell A1, then move it slowly to the right until it changes into a black cross with arrows on the sides. Double-click and the cell width will shrink to fit the text. Do the same thing over the "1" to the left of cell A1, moving your mouse slowly downward until it turns into a cross with arrows, then double-clicking.
6. Click the sizing handle at the lower right corner of the Excel spreadsheet, and drag it as close as you can to the lower right corner of cell A1. This takes a leap of faith, because the grayed dragging outline includes the scroll bars, so you probably won't believe that you have the Excel window narrowed down to cell A1, but you will. Trust me.
7. Click outside the Excel spreadsheet. The rotated text appears inside a light gray box. The box shows up on the screen, but it doesn't print. The text you'll see looks horrible on the screen - but it prints great.
8. If you want to move the rotated text to any location on the page, right-click on that boxed Excel text, choose Format Object | Layout and pick any Wrapping Style except "In Line With Text". (In Word 97, you have to check the box that says "Float Over Text".) From that point, you can click on the rotated text and drag it wherever you like.

Additional tips:

If the angled text seems to be cut off at one end, try playing with the vertical and horizontal alignment boxes. Double click on the angled text, right mouse click on cell A1 and cell and choose "Format Cells" The vertical and horizontal boxes are on the "Alignment" tab.

Try playing around with the "wrap text" setting and row heights. Some interesting things can be done with it. A large row height will give several lines of text on an angle. A very small row height can give a single row of text with each character falling over! (This setting will not show the spaces between the words. To fake a space, use any other character, for example, # instead of spaces. While typing the text, format the color of each # to white so they don't show up. A small angle will result in a large space between each character, and a negative angle writes the text backwards as well as facing down, "esrever" the order of the letters to make the words readable).

Once one piece of angled text has been inserted, you can cut and paste, or drag it into other places in the document, including drawing objects and the headers and footers.

If you regularly insert a standard piece of angled text, You can save an Excel file with the formatted text and then choose the "Create From File"
tab in the Insert | Object dialog - and you're basically done.

If you want a single line of text that goes along, up and then along again, type the first bit in Word, insert the angled text, and then type the rest in Word. Select the text to be raised up, right mouse click and choose "Font..." On the "Character spacing" tab, select "Raised" in the "Position"
box and enter the number of points in the "By:" box. (You can enter 2.5 cm or 1 in if you find it hard to think in points).

To get multline "flat" text either side of the angled text, use columns and float the angled text over top.

That, my friends, is the real story behind rotating text in Word. It's a huge, gnarly, ugly procedure that puts off all but the most hardened Word veterans. Microsoft should've fixed it a decade ago, but you knew I'd say that, didn't you?