Change the Orientation of Text in an Excel Worksheet
Posted on August 28, 2010 at 5:14 am
Excel allows you to keep track of data using a grid so it is easy to make calculations, edit data, and find the information you are looking for. However, there are times when Excel’s neat and tidy arrangement of data just doesn’t fill our needs as a way to make information easy to understand. Using the text orientation feature in Excel, you can make the text in your worksheets rotate in just about any direction you want.
Why Orient Text Differently in Excel?
Online collaboration is no longer an anomaly in business, education, and even our private lives. Sharing documents on the web is one way we can be more efficient and get more work done.
Consequently, we need to be more aware of how the documents we present to others will be received. Part of the presentation is how the data and information in an Excel spreadsheet is displayed.
Reorienting text in a cell can help make worksheets more accessible and easier to understand. It can also help remove unnecessary whitespace in a spreadsheet and make information easier to find.
This is especially true if text is reoriented vertically rather than horizontally. In addition, orientation of text in Excel allows you to be more creative. This can come in handy when creating invoices and other business documents in a spreadsheet.
How to Change Text Orientation in Excel
Suppose you have a spreadsheet that looks like the one below. Notice that the header text in Row 1 is much longer than the data contained underneath it. You can reorient the text in cell A1 to a vertical position and eliminate the extraneous white space in Column A.
To begin the reorientation of the text in cell A1, click on cell A1 to make it the active cell in the worksheet and then click on the Home tab on the Ribbon. Locate a section of the Ribbon labeled Alignment. Look for a button in the Alignment section that looks like an AB with an arrow pointing up and to the right. Click on this button and select the option titled Vertical Text.
You’ll notice that the text in cell A1 is now vertical. Make the width of Column A smaller to match the contents of that column and you now have a header in cell A1 that better matches the width of the data in the rest of Column A.
Although not as practical, you can also orient the text in a cell in other directions. For example, click on A1 again and this time click on the small arrow in the right hand corner of the Alignment section of the Ribbon.
This will open up the Format Cells window with the Alignment tab already selected. On the right hand side of the window, notice that you can freely choose the direction of the text to point in any direction from -90 degrees to 90 degrees. The default alignment, of course, is zero degrees.
Using the orientation option in Excel, you can orient text in just about direction you want.
With a little practice, you can make the information in an Excel worksheet more accessible, visually appealing, and professional looking in comparison to the usual grid format used by most people.
» Filed Under MS Office Tips
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