In Excel: select the cells and use Home ▸ Alignment ▸ Orientation (the ab↗ button) — or press Ctrl+1 ▸ Alignment and set the degrees box to any angle from −90 to 90.
On this page7
Select the cells whose text you want to rotate.
Home ▸ Alignment group ▸ Orientation (ab↗) and pick a preset.
For a specific angle, Ctrl+1 ▸ Alignment ▸ type the degrees, or drag the dial.
Double-click the row border to autofit the height, otherwise the rotated text is clipped.
Set the horizontal and vertical alignment afterwards — rotation changes which edge a label appears to hang from.
What this does
The Orientation button offers five presets: Angle Counterclockwise, Angle Clockwise, Vertical Text, Rotate Text Up and Rotate Text Down. For anything else, Ctrl+1 ▸ Alignment has a degree dial and a numeric box accepting −90 to +90. "Vertical Text" is the odd one out: it does not rotate the characters at all, it stacks them one above another, still upright — which is the right choice for CJK text and usually the wrong one for Latin headers. Rotating a header does not resize its row, so the text is normally clipped until you double-click the row border to autofit. Rotation is a cell property, not a text property, so it applies to whatever the cell contains and survives editing. Most people learn this as a sequence of clicks and forget it by next week; learning it as a pattern instead is what lets you apply it to the next, slightly different version of the problem without starting from scratch. That is the difference this page is trying to make. Treat “excel vertical text” as a small repeatable workflow rather than a one-off click you hope to remember next time. Use a small test block before the live file, so any surprise in the affected cells shows up while it is still harmless. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. That turns a text operation that turns messy entries into clean, usable data into a method you can reuse, explain, and defend when the workbook leaves your screen.
A worked example
A comparison table with twelve narrow monthly columns and long header labels. Select A1:M1, Home ▸ Orientation ▸ Angle Counterclockwise (45°), then double-click the bottom border of row 1 to autofit the height. The columns can now be half as wide and every header is still readable. Angled headers are what let a wide comparison table fit on one page without abbreviating every column name into something nobody can decode. When the result is not what you expected, undo straight away rather than repairing it by hand — undo restores the sheet exactly, while manual fixes tend to leave small inconsistencies behind that surface later.
In Google Sheets
This is a command rather than a formula, so there is no syntax to carry over. Google Sheets arranges its commands in menus across the top instead of a ribbon, names some of them differently and does not have every Excel command — look for the equivalent in the Sheets menus or its help before assuming the steps match. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. Treat “excel vertical text” as a routine rather than a one-off. Once you know which setting or command controls it, the same few steps handle every workbook where it comes up in Excel, and you can explain them to a colleague in a sentence.
Common mistakes
- Choosing Vertical Text and expecting rotation; it stacks upright characters instead.
- Leaving the row at its old height so the rotated text is cut off.
- Rotating a merged cell, where the alignment result is rarely what the dialog preview showed.
- Rotating body data rather than headers — angled numbers are markedly harder to read down a column.
- Assuming the rotation survives a copy into another application; most paste targets keep the text and drop the angle.
Frequently asked questions
How do I rotate text in Excel?
Select the cells, then Home ▸ Alignment ▸ Orientation, or Ctrl+1 ▸ Alignment and enter an angle between −90 and 90 degrees.
How do I make text vertical in Excel?
Orientation ▸ Vertical Text stacks the letters upright. For characters turned on their side, use Rotate Text Up or Rotate Text Down instead.
Why is my rotated text cut off?
Rotation does not change the row height. Double-click the bottom border of the row heading to autofit it.
Can I rotate text to an exact angle?
Yes — Ctrl+1 ▸ Alignment has a degrees box that accepts any whole number from −90 to 90.