Do you have any idea how to rotate cell contents in Excel?

Excel is no doubt a powerful tool used for multipurpose functions as it contains various features. With an Excel sheet, you can easily store a huge dataset as well as you can easily edit data according to your needs. Excel also allows you to use many alignment options so that you can make changes in the presentation of your data.

To make a column narrower, when the text in the column heading is longer than the text in the column, you need to rotate the cell content. Changing the cell content position is an inbuilt function of Excel that lets you change the text in whatever style you want. In this post, you will get to know about the cell content rotation as per your choice.

Why Rotate the Cell Content?

Before starting ahead, let’s see why you need to rotate the cell content.

Any kind of text can be rotated in Excel. Suppose, you need to rotate the cell content to fit the width in the column or else you need another angle presentation of the content. Here, you will see an Excel table example in which the sales list is given that gets updated monthly.

In this example, you can see the headers of the column are bigger than the content. Therefore, you cannot see the November and December months in the table. To see these months you need to scroll the table. You have to rotate the cell content so that all data appear at once on the screen.

If you rotate any text, you can also make changes to other cell contents. It also lets you improve the presentation of data in a sheet. Also, when you rotate a text, you get more space to add more data.

How to Rotate Cell Contents in Excel with Ribbon Alignment Options?

In the following dataset, you need to rotate the headings in the first row.

Here are the steps to follow:

• Choose all the cells with the headers.
• Open the Home tab.

• Choose the “Orientation” icon from the Alignment menu.

• Choose the Angle Counterclockwise option.

• You will notice the cell content is rotated by 45 degrees.

If you choose the option Angle Clockwise or Rotate Text Up, they will rotate the cell content to some other angle.

How to Rotate Cell Content in Excel with the Format Cells Dialog Box?

Here comes another useful method in which you use the Format Cells dialog box. You can rotate the text at any angle except the preset angle orientation option with this procedure. Below are the steps:

• Choose a cell range in which the cell content rotation is needed.
• Open the Format Cells dialog box. For this, click on the Home tab and chose the Orientation icon. Select the Format Cell Alignment option.

• Or else you can click on the arrow icon given on the right side.

• Right-click on the cells you have selected and choose the Format Cells option. The Format Cells dialog box will pop up.

• You can even use keyboard shortcuts to open the Format Cells dialog box.
• Press CTRL + 1 to open the dialog box.
• Also, note that the 1 must be pressed from the keypad area only and not from the numerical pad.
• Also, you need to confirm the desired rotation angle for the cells in the Orientation window.

• Once the angle rotation is decided, click OK.

You will notice the desired rotation angle is applied to all the cells.

That’s it!

How to Rotate Cell Content in Excel with Shortcut Keys?

Here you can learn the shortcut keys that let you rotate text in a cell quickly. For this, follow the given procedure:

• Select all the text you need to rotate.
• Press ALT + H
• You will see the keyboard shortcut keys are highlighted to the button and option.
• You can use the shortcut keys F and Q for the orientation.
• On pressing the Q key, you will notice the orientation drop-down appears with the shortcut keys. Click on the key you need to rotate the text. Suppose, you need to rotate the cell content counterclockwise, for this press O. On the other hand, if you need to rotate the cell content clockwise, press L.

• Press ALT + H + F + Q + O for the text rotation in Excel.

Though this shortcut command is lengthy and could be confusing at times, however, it can save you time as well as effort.

Summary:

In this post, you have learned how to rotate cell contents in Excel with the help of the Format Cell dialog box, ribbon alignment option, and in the end shortcut key combinations.