How to Rotate Text in Cell in Excel & Google Sheets

This tutorial demonstrates how to rotate text in a cell in Excel and Google Sheets.

Excel lets you change the direction of a cell’s content. You can rotate text clockwise, counterclockwise, up, or down.

Rotate Text in a Cell

To rotate text in cell A1, for example, counterclockwise, select the cell and go to Home > Orientation > Angle Counterclockwise.

As a result, the content of cell A1 is rotated counterclockwise.

You can also rotate in other directions, using the Orientation options listed below.

As you can see in the picture above, the cells are formatted as follows:

• A1 – Angle Counterclockwise,
• B1 – Angle Clockwise,
• C1 – Vertical Text,
• D1 – Rotate Text Up, and
• E1 – Rotate Text Down.

Rotate Text to a Precise Angle

In addition to the options available in the Orientation menu, you can also manually set an angle degree of the text in a cell. By default, Angle Counterclockwise and Angle Clockwise are set to 45 degrees.

1. If you want to set it to, for example, 60 degrees, select the cell and go to Home > Orientation > Format Cell Alignment.

2. In the Format Cells dialog box, set Degrees under Orientation (on the right side). Set it to 30 degrees.

As a result, the text in cell A1 is rotated 30 degrees counterclockwise.

See more tutorials about formatting text:

• Use Line Spacing
• Hide Overflow Text in a Cell
• Center Across Selection
• Write Text Vertically
• Go Down to the Next Line
• Put Two Lines in One Cell
• Make Cells Bigger to Fit Text