Googling forever - how in the world do I rotate text?
 

This is so frustrating. This tool is supposed to be easy to use and I feel like an idiot.

I have text inside of a narrow vertical rectangle box. I want to rotate the text so it's rotated like 90 degrees.

If you look at this screen shot you'll see what I mean. I want the "sample text" that you see by the arrow to rotate.

[url]http://img.skitch.com/20080926-dr1kg1hifbed7f45x3hqc3c1ba.jpg[/url]

How exactly do you do it? Shouldn't the pdf give instructions on what to do other than just say that feature exists.

(I'm using the trial of the latest pro beta.)

If you're running OmniGraffle Professional there are text offset and rotation controls in the lower portion of the Style: Text Inspector.

If you're running the standard version of OmniGraffle, those controls are not there -- best to make a narrow horizontal rectangle, then rotate it using the Geometry Inspector (which I myself would do as opposed to using relative text rotation).

Hope that helps,

<quote>If you're running OmniGraffle Professional there are text offset and rotation controls in the lower portion of the Style: Text Inspector.</quote>

See that's what I feel like an idiot. I totally see those controls [url]http://img.skitch.com/20080926-cxig45uwj1ur4nb81tjhy7747s.jpg[/url]

but I can't figure out how to use them! What am actually supposed to be clicking to get it to work? I've tried all kinds of things and I can't seem to get things to really rotate. Occasionally I'll just happen to click in some way and get the text to change position but it never falls into any sort of position like I described in my initial post in regard to this screen shot:
[url]http://img.skitch.com/20080926-dr1kg1hifbed7f45x3hqc3c1ba.jpg[/url]

What am I supposed to be clicking/moving (including the style text editor) to get the text to rotate so that it appears vertically with the base of the fonts flush to the 'left/west' ?

Thanks for any help.

Try unchecking the "Wrap to Shape" checkbox in that inspector, I suspect you're getting rotated text but it's bound by the shape.

Also, as an FYI, rotated text in any case will be right-reading when editing the text.

[QUOTE=Joel;47846]Try unchecking the "Wrap to Shape" checkbox in that inspector, I suspect you're getting rotated text but it's bound by the shape. [/QUOTE]


MANY THANKS! That was it. Wow what was driving me crazy.

one more quick question if you don't mind... while googling about this I saw an old post (can't find it now) that mentioned there was a way to manually drag to rotate instead of having to use the text rotation box in the style text section. I can't find any information on how this works though. Is it possible?

That doesn't work for text rotation, however if you want to rotate a shape, holding down the Command key will change the cursor to a rotation tool.

Cheers,

Here's another trick you might need if you rotate the object's shape but you want the text to remain horizontal (i.e., readable):

Select the object (not the text)
Inspector, Style, Text, Text Offset area
Turn OFF "Use default offsets"
Change Text Rotation to "Absolute"
Set degrees to "0" (if necessary)