Rotate Text in a Cell (Numbers)

Hi Skyeword,

Rotating text is available for labels on the horizontal axis of charts, but, as you have mentioned, is not a supported feature in spreadsheet tables or elsewhere.

Regarding Export to Excel—That's always an option, and if you need features supported by Excel and not supported in Numbers, the advice here in Apple Support communities has generally been 'use the tool best fitted for the job.'

As well as Excel, you might check out LibreOffice, an open source and free to download and use application that more closely matches the Excel feature set, and is one of te better documented applications of its type.

And regarding "iWork is not available as a category, only Apple Works... Curiouser..." There is an iWork community here—iWork for iOS. The iWork applications, Pages, Numbers and Keynote were marketed as "iWork" only from late 2007 until about 2012. The Mac versions have been available as individual applications since the first versions after iWork '09. And the iOS versions were always individual apps, with the only iWork reference being the iWork for iOS community here.

As for the AppleWorks community, it's main use recently has been as an address to which new users send question for which they don't know (or can't determine) the best place to send those questions. Fortunately for those users, there still several subscribers to the AppleWorks community who'll redirect their questions to more appropriate forums.

Getting back to text rotation—The participants in these user-to-user communities can offer you workarounds using the software as it currently exists, but have no control over changes to the software necessary to add the features that require those changes. For that, you'll need to speak directly to Apple, using the Provide Numbers Feedback menu item in the Numbers menu.

Click on the menu choice, then make a Feature Enhancement request.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Skyeword,

Skyeword wrote:

Rotating text to orient at an angle, or maximally to 90 degrees, can only be done with text boxes. The problem is that the text boxes do not situate within a cell and therefore any movement, additions or alterations require the manual modification of every textbox.

I agree.

Here is a way.

• Create the rotated textboxes and take a screen shot of each one.
• Insert the screen shots onto a blank part of the sheet canvas.
• Copy a screen shot and paste into a table cell. The image will become an Image Fill that will move with the table.

Choose Scale to fill.

Regards,

Ian.

@SG, remember this User Tip?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7201

Over the years, I have recommended that User Tip with absolutely zilch replies 🤨.

Perhaps it is time to create a User Tip based on the idea above.

Ian.

Hi Barry,

Yes. it was fiddly.

1. Set the width of the columns to accommodate the widest entry in the body cells (yes, we are stuck with that width).
2. Set the height of the header row to accommodate the longest rotated label, plus a bit more (see point 8).
3. Format Panel > Table > Row & Column Size and note them.
4. Create text boxes with width (before rotating) equal to the row height and height (before rotating) equal to the column width.
5. Type the labels and rotate the boxes 90 degrees.
6. Take screen shots. Great care needed to capture only the boxes and not any of the surrounding white canvas.
7. Insert screen shots onto the canvas. Copy and paste into the cells. Scale to fill should involve minimal (if any) distortion.
8. Type the labels into the cells so that the values can be used in formulas. Align to the top of the cells. Turn off Wrap Text in Cell. Hide the cell contents by changing the text colour to match the image fill background. The extra height (point 2) ensures that the grey text does not obscure the black text in the image fill.

Yes, we are stuck with the chosen cell sizes. Choose wisely!

Regards,

Ian.

Skyeword wrote:

In 2021, why is iWorks not available as a category in Apple Discussions.

This screenshot was taken in 2021!

As you can see, Barry is correct in pointing out that the iWork section is alive and well. There is no "iWorks" section.

I use both Excel and Numbers. If you need slanted or rotated text in a cell, or frequently need to print out highly formatted documents, then use Excel. It's an excellent app on the Mac, more convenient than Numbers for some things, less convenient than Numbers for many other things.

SG

Hi Ian,

One issue with using the image of a text box as image fill is the distortion of the text as the image stretches to fill the cell as it's column is made wider, and shrinking when the column is made less wide.

If those changes are anticipated, it might be useful to make a set of each label is varying size text boxes to match (closely, not exactly) the expected cell sizes. Pasting a copy of the closest size in the set to the cell would then restore the text to a close match to its original size.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Skyword,

"…what I am looking for is why …"

"Why?" is not a question you'll find an answer to in this user to user community. We're users of the hardware and the software, and are not privy to the reasons for action or inaction on Apples part, or to the current and future goals of Apple leadership or its development teams.

Regarding LibreOffice: I don't use it much at all. Libre does open a wide variety of file types, including, I think those of the iWork '09 and '08 applications, but the version I have (circa 2016) does not list any of the post '09 files of the iWork applications.

So it would be a 'starting from scratch (or from a Numbers file exported to MS Excel format) situation.

I did open a new LibreOffice (Calc) document after posting yesterday, and didn't find a means of rotating text in a cell there; apologies for bad advice on that!

As to 'level 1' status—that often means only that the person posting hasn't done that before or hasn't done it very much.

"Well, I've had fun. You?"

Always! :^)

Regards,

Barry

And remember Numbers is cross platform now. Not so easy to have rotated text on a tablet or on the web.

SG

Skyeword wrote:

Apple must have a hidden reason or this little ditty is the grandest oversight in Apple Software history.

I'm sure we can think of grander "oversights" than this. But I do wonder why they have not included text rotation in all these years and all these versions. It may have something to do with the underlying architecture of how tables are stored and displayed and would require a huge rework. Who knows.