Excel 2010 Bible

Part I: Getting Started with Excel

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From the Home ➪ Alignment ➪ Orientation drop-down list, you can apply the most common text

angles. For more control, use the Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box. In the Format

Cells dialog box (refer to Figure 6-5), use the Degrees spinner control — or just drag the pointer in

the gauge. You can specify a text angle between –90 and +90 degrees.

Figure 6.8 shows an example of text displayed at a 45-degree angle.

Note
Rotated text may look a bit distorted onscreen, but the printed output is usually of much better quality. n

FIGURE 6.8

Rotate text for additional visual impact.

Controlling the text direction ..................................................................................

Not all languages use the same character direction. Although most Western languages are read left

to right, other languages are read right to left. You can use the Text Direction option to select the

appropriate setting for the language you use. This command is available only in the Alignment tab

of the Format Cells dialog box.

Don’t confuse the Text Direction setting with the Orientation setting (discussed in the previous

section). Changing the text orientation is common. Changing the text direction is used only in very

specific situations.

Note
Changing the Text Direction setting won’t have any effect unless you have the proper language drivers installed
on your system. For example, you must install Japanese language support from the Office CD-ROM to use
right-to-left text direction Japanese characters. n

New Feature
Use the Language tab of the Excel Options dialog box to determine which languages are installed. n