Now, you can change the angle of rotation by clicking and dragging the dial or clicking on any point along the semicircle inside the orientation box. In the Alignment tab of the Format Cells windows, you will have an Orientation box and an editor box below. In the ‘Home’ tab, click the ‘Orientation’ button in the Alignment section and select the ‘Format Cell Alignment’ option.Īlternatively, you can also click on the arrow icon (Alignment Settings) from the bottom right corner of the Alignment group or press Ctrl+ 1.
Here’s what you need to do:įirst, select a cell or a range of cells with text that needs rotation. If you want to rotate your text to a precise angle to help you get the angle and spacing of the text right, you can do that from the Format Cell dialog window.
Rotate Text using Format Cells Dialog BoxĪlthough the above method helps you quickly rotate text within the cell, it gives you limited orientation options. If you are not happy with any of the above 5 preset alignment options, you can use the next method to choose exactly how much you want the text to rotate. Then, select one of the alignment options from the menu.Ĭhoose the rotation option that fits your requirement. You can select a cell, range of cells, row, or column.įrom the ‘Home’ tab, in the Alignment section, click the ‘Orientation’ button (icon with ‘ab’ on an incline). Let’s assume you have the below dataset where column headers are bigger than the column values and you want to rotate the headings in the first row.įollow the below instructions to rotate text in cells:įirst, select the cells with the text that you want to rotate. Rotate Text using Pre-Defined Orientation Optionsīy default, all values are stored horizontally in an Excel cell, but rotating text diagonally or vertically is the best way to accommodate any lengthy text in a small space.Įxcel’s Orientation feature offers 5 different alignment options to quickly rotate text or change the direction of a cell’s content to fit your column. It also allows you to fit more columns of data into a smaller area. To rotate text in cells, first highlight the cells containing the text you want to rotate. Make sure the “Home” tab is active and click the “Orientation” button in the “Alignment” section of the “Home” tab (the button with the skewed text). Select an option to rotate the text. The icons to the left of the options indicate which way the text rotates. NOTE: We used Excel 2016 to demonstrate this feature. If you have a worksheet where the column headers text (not the lettered column headers) is longer than the column text and there are a lot of columns, you can rotate the text in your headers so that the columns become narrower.