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Word 2007: How to Make a Vertical Heading for a Horizontal Page

Here’s how to have text (could be a header or footer, heading, or title) run along the left or right side of a page, while the page text runs horizontally.

1. Start with either a blank Word document or the document you want to work on open.
2. The vertical text will be made in the document header: click the Insert tab, then in the Header & Footer group, click Header, then Edit Header.
3. Your cursor should now be in the header area. The vertical text is going to be in a text box that is in the header. From the Insert tab, Text group, click Text Box, then Draw Text Box. (The pre-made Text boxes should work for this, but may have different presets. This example will start from a basic text box in order to show which settings need to turned on.)
4. Draw out the box along the side of the page you want it – you’ll probably be resizing it again, so don’t worry about it being perfect. As long as the header is still activated, that’s where the text box is being drawn.

Because the vertical text is in a header, use the Header & Footer tools, like Different First Page and section breaks, to control if you only want it on the first page or on specific pages.

The following steps don’t have to occur in the order they’re written. Some of the options needed to change the text box are in the Text Box Tools, Format tab. These tabs will not be visible unless the text box is selected. You can single-click on the text box to select it.

Change the Text Direction: Click the Text Box Tools, Format tab, and in the Text group, click Text Direction until it’s what you want. The image on the button reflects the text direction.

Add the Text: After you type in the text, change the Font style and size, etc, through the Home tab, Font group.

Turn on Wrapping: Click the Text Box Tools, Format tab, and in the Arrange group set Text Wrapping to Square.

Change the Text Orientation: In the Home tab, Paragraph group, use the Left, Center, Right, or Justify to change the alignment of the text in the Text box. If you have turned the text direction so it runs from bottom to top, Right orientation will move the text towards the top of the box.

Format Text Box: You can right-click the text box border and choose Edit Text Box to access a couple other settings for the text box. In Format Text Box, Text Box tab, you can adjust the Internal margin for the text box. In the Vertical alignment section, you can choose from Top, Center or Bottom alignment. (These seem a little quirky when I’ve used them: Top seemed to center the content best.) Be sure you don’t have unnecessary Enters after the text in the box.

Using Tabs: if you want to use tabs to control text spacing in the text box, you will need to push Ctrl + Tab to insert the tabs. Set the tabs through the Paragraph group dialog box, Tabs button. Use the actual size of the text box to determine the tab stops: if you want a right tab, set it to close to the height of the text box.

Add Page Numbering: If you want page numbering, add it to the Text box by using the Quick Parts, then Fields (Either in the Header & Footer tools, Design tab, Insert group or Insert tab, Text group. Page numbering is in the Numbering Category as Page, total number of pages (Page X of Y) is in the Document Information Category as NumPages.

Format the Text Box

You can use either Text Box Tools, Format tab to customize the text box (or right-click the text box border and choose Edit Text Box). Note that the Text Box Tools only shows when the text box is selected. Here are the basic options on the Design tab to use for formatting.

Text Box Styles group: use Shape Fill to add background color or Shape Outline to add (or remove) border color and style to the text box.

Arrange group: use Text Wrapping set to Square to force the text in the body of your project to run next to, not over or behind, the text box. Use Position, More Layout Options to precisely position your text box on the page.

Size group: you can set your text box to an exact size using the shape height and width measurements. This can also be used to verify text box height before setting tabs.

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