in Pages: How to change text direction in cell?

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in Pages: How to change text direction in cell?

in Pages, I'd like to change the direction of the text in a table I'm creating.

In the first column (one long column -- I've merged the cells) the work is reading left to right. How do I make it read up and down?

Thanks in advance!

Posted on Dec 28, 2012 1:08 PM

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Answer 1

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PeterBreis0807

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Dec 28, 2012 1:20 PM in response to CarlyOkie

Put the text in a Textbox and rotate that 90°.

Peter

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Answer 2

Dec 28, 2012 1:40 PM in response to CarlyOkie

Hi Carly,

As Peter notes, iWork tables don't support text rotation as a format option. It's often easier to just place a Text Box adjacent to the table, and Text Boxes can be rotated any way you like. Merging cells is an iWork table is a booby trap that can catch you later if you decide to add or delete rows or sort the rows - it won't work. We've found that merging is just not worth the hassle except in rare instances, especially considering the other ways of annotating your work.

Jerry

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Answer 3

CarlyOkie Author

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Dec 28, 2012 1:48 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Thank you Peter. Very nice of you to respond so quickly.

CarlyOkie

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Answer 4

CarlyOkie Author

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Dec 28, 2012 1:55 PM in response to CarlyOkie

Here's what I found:

Insert a text box from the INSERT menu.... it's also available at the FORMAT menu, but I chose Insert.
Don't drag yet!
place cursor and type your text.
Then, click on the METRICS menu in the Inspector pane
Rotate. Getting exactly to 90 degrees was difficult. Maybe because I called it 90% at first!
Now you can drag.
It might look better to spread out the letter spacing in the text you have entered. Do that from the "text" tab in the Inspector pane.
if you double click, or even click too much, the text box will jump back into a horizontal position -- Dont' worry, it's trying to let you edit.
just go back to "Metric" and change it back to 90 degrees.
Thanks Barry for answering this 3 years ago, and getting me started!

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Answer 5

Dec 28, 2012 1:59 PM in response to CarlyOkie

CarlyOkie wrote:

just go back to "Metric" and change it back to 90 degrees.

You don't need to do that, just clicking away from the box, rotates it back to where it was.

Peter

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Answer 6

CarlyOkie Author

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Dec 28, 2012 2:32 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Awesome, thanks. Even better!

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