Rotating Cell Entries

One of Excel's most exciting alignment features lets you change the orientation of text in the cell. You can rotate the text vertically, arranging the text so that you can read it from top to bottom within the cell. Flipping the text sideways lets you print it from top to bottom rather than left to right.

If you don't want to flip the text horizontally or vertically, you can angle the text by specifying the number of degrees of an angle you want to rotate. Rotated text appears slanted and looks fancier than ordinary text.

The next To Do exercise shows you how to rotate text at an angle.

To Do: Rotate Text

  1. Select the range that contains the text you want to rotate; in this case, select cell A12.

  2. Choose Format, Cells. The Format Cells dialog box appears.

  3. Click the Alignment tab if necessary.

  4. In the Orientation section, type 45 in the Degrees box. This entry specifies the number of degrees you want the text to rotate.

  5. Click OK.

  6. Click any cell to deselect the range. The text you selected should appear slanted. See Figure 8.6.

    Figure 8.6. Rotated text.

    graphics/08fig06.jpg



    Part I: Excel Basics