How to Rotate Text in Excel? 3 Effective Ways
(Note: This guide on how to rotate text in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)
When working in Excel, we always look for ways to improve the appeal of the content. This helps improve the readability and comprehensibility of the content and makes them visually pleasing.
There are many ways to improve the appeal and formatting of the text to suit the reader. One such way is to rotate text in Excel.
In this guide, I will show you 3 ways on how to rotate text in Excel.
You’ll Learn:
- Why Rotate Text in Excel?
- Using Orientation Option
- Using the Format Option
- Using Shortcut Keys
- How to Undo Rotate?
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Why Rotate Text in Excel?
Before we learn how to rotate text in Excel, let us see why we rotate text in Excel.
In Excel, you can rotate any text depending on your preference. For example, you can rotate text to fit the width of the content in the column or to provide a different perspective of a particular text.
Consider an example of an Excel table consisting of the list of sales made every month by the employees of a company.
As you can see the headers for the columns are bigger than the content. As a result, the months of November and December are not visible unless you scroll. Additionally, having only 15 entries at the bottom of the spreadsheet makes it look barren. So, to overcome this you can rotate the text in the headers.
By rotating a text, you can make other texts visible and also enhance the overall appearance of the spreadsheet. Additionally, if you rotate, you can accommodate more text in a smaller space.
Using Orientation Option
To rotate text in Excel using the Orientation option, first select the text you want to rotate.
Navigate to Home. Under Alignment, click on Orientation.
Clicking on the orientation button drops down a list of ways you want to rotate the text. Select the orientation type you want to alter the text to.
This rotates the text based on your selection. It can be seen that the text is rotated to a certain angle. In this case, the texts are rotated by an angle of 45° since you selected Angle Counterclockwise.
You can also select the other options to rotate the text up, down, angle clockwise, or angle counterclockwise depending on your preference.
The options in the orientation dropdown only rotate the text to a preset degree. If you want to align the text to a particular angle and add additional customizations, you can orient them using the Format option.
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Using the Format Option
You can arrive at the Format Cells dialog box in three ways.
By Right-Clicking and Selecting Format Cells
To arrive at the Format cells dialog box, first select the text you want to rotate. Then, right-click on the cells and select Format Cells.
This opens up a Format Cell dialog box.
From Orientation Dropdown
Another way to arrive at the Format Cells dialog box is from the Orientation dropdown.
Navigate to Home. Under Alignment, click on the Orientation dropdown menu. From the dropdown, select Format Cells Alignment.
Using Alignment Settings
Or, you can click on the Alignment setting under the Alignment section in the Home menu to open the Format cells dialog box.
You can choose to open the Format cells dialog in all three ways. Once the format cells dialog box opens, click on the Alignment tab.
In the dialog box, under the Alignment tab, you can see a dial-shaped feature in the orientation to the right.
To rotate the text to a precise angle, you can either enter the degree you want to rotate the text to or drag the dial to set the degree of rotation of the text. As you drag the dial, the angle automatically adjusts. This way you can know and set the degree of rotation for the text. Click OK.
This rotates the text to your desired angle.
Under the Alignment tab, you can also use text alignment, text control, and right-to-left features to customize the text.
Using Shortcut Keys
The keyboard shortcut keys to rotate text in Excel consists of a series of operations.
First, as usual, select the text you want to rotate.
Now, press Alt+H. This highlights the keyboard shortcut keys to every button and option.
The shortcut key for the Orientation button is F and Q.
After you press Q, you can see the orientation dropdown showing up with the shortcut keys for each type of rotation.
Click on the key in the way you want to rotate the text. For example, if you want to rotate text counterclockwise, press O. Likewise, if you want to rotate the text clockwise, press L.
Thus, the shortcut to rotate text in Excel is Alt+H and then F, Q, and O (Alt+H+F+Q+O). Though it may be a little confusing, it saves you a lot of time and effort once you get a hang of it.
How to Undo Rotate?
You can rotate the text clockwise, counterclockwise, up, and down. But if you are not satisfied with the rotated text, you can always revert them to normal.
Select the text you want to change to the default state. Navigate to the Orientation button and from the dropdown, click on the option which you used to rotate.
The option used to rotate the text can be seen with a square around the selection. Click on it again to change the rotated text to its default state.
Or, you can also open the Format Cells dialog box and change the angle of rotation to 0.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can we rotate a text to a specific degree in Excel?
Yes, in Excel you can rotate a text to a specific degree. Right-click on the selected cells and click on the Format Cells dialog box. Under the Alignment section, enter the specific degrees or use the dial to rotate the text.
Can you invert a text in Excel?
No, you cannot invert a text in Excel. Excel only offers the flexibility to rotate a text between +90 degrees to -90 degrees. If you try to rotate text above the threshold value, Excel throws an error.
How do I rotate a text counterclockwise in Excel?
Select the cells with text and click on the dropdown from the Orientation button. Click on Angle Counterclockwise to rotate the cells.
Closing Thoughts
Learning to rotate a text in Excel can come quite handy when you have to work on limited space. This is also useful if you want to change the appearance of the text to get a different perspective on the spreadsheet.
In this article, we saw how to rotate text in Excel using 3 methods. You can either use the orientation button, format cells dialog box, or use the shortcut keys for a faster and more efficient way to rotate the text.
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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 100+ IT training courses.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!