Angle Clockwise in Excel

When you work with text in spreadsheets, it’s often useful to angle text in different directions. For example, you can angle text by moving it in a clockwise direction. Fortunately, this is very easy to do. Let’s learn how to angle clockwise in Microsoft Excel.

How to Angle Clockwise in Excel

Excel makes it easy to angle text in a clockwise direction. This is often used with column headers. By angling text, words or phrases are narrower. This way, more headers can be visible on a screen view or printout of your spreadsheets.

To angle clockwise in Excel, begin by clicking on a cell containing text that you want to angle. Then, be sure you’re working on the Home tab. The Home tab is found on Excel’s ribbon. The ribbon is the series of menus and options across the top of your screen, such as Home, Insert, Draw, and more.

Just left of center on the Home tab, you’ll see the Alignment group. In the upper right corner of this group is the Orientation dropdown menu. Go ahead and click on it.

You’ll see a list of options displayed: Angle Counterclockwise, Angle Clockwise, Vertical Text, and more. In this example, of course, you’ll want to click Angle Clockwise. 

Watch as Excel angles the text in a clockwise direction. This means that words angle downward from left to right.

You can also multi-select several cells and apply this adjustment to multiple words or phrases.

Want to undo these changes? Simply return to the Orientation dropdown and you’ll see that Angle Clockwise is checked. Simply click it again and the cell or cells you have selected will return to a normal, level orientation.

As you can see, it’s very quick and easy to angle clockwise in Excel. This is a useful way to display text, especially in column headers.