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Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #336, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

This week, we're looking at use cases for the text rotation tool. I don't use it often but it's a nice technique for styling your Sheets. I've used it to add branding to my Sheets (see use case 2 below).

Find tip #336 below our sponsor message and a few articles to share from the spreadsheet world.

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➜ News

I.
​One of the particular challenges with spreadsheets for AI tools is that much of the logic and information is hidden within formulas, scripts and pivot tables. They're much more than just flat data files. And this presents a problem for AI tools.

This essay from Ben Lorica explores this problem:

​Is Your AI Missing Out? The Hidden Logic in Your Spreadsheets​

II.
​A great tutorial from a fellow GDE Scott Donald, showing you how to use Advanced Services in Apps Script to build a row archiving tool.

​Creating a Google Sheets Row Archiver​

III.​
Use Gemini in the side panel of Workspace apps in seventeen more languages

​Read more >>​

IV.
​In case you're interested in behind-the-scenes type insights, I was recently interviewed on two podcasts:

​A chat about how to restart my newsletter growth​

(perhaps you can help by sharing this newsletter 😉)

And I was interviewed by a friend on his entrepreneur show:

​Interview about how I built my business​

➜ Sheets Tip #336: Text Rotation in Sheets

In this tip, let's look at the text rotation feature in Google Sheets.

You'll find it in the toolbar:

or under the Format menu:

The text rotation feature in Google Sheets rotates text in a cell, so it can be angled in any direction.

There are six preset modes as well as a custom angle option.

Example Use Case 1: Table Headings

Occasionally, it might make sense to rotate headings in tables, for example, if you want to maintain narrow column widths:

Example Use Case 2: Graphical Enhancements

If you're building a report or dashboard and want to add some visual flair, then experiment with text rotation to make your Sheet more visually appealing.

For example, I use text rotated at 90º to brand my dashboard templates:

Example Use Case 3: Subdivided Cell

It's even possible to subdivide a cell with a dividing line, using text rotation. Start with this text block in a single cell:

(That's an em dash symbol between the text lines.)

Next rotate the text to -45º to get this result:

(Note: you can create the stacked text with a formula too.)

Summary

Although of limited use, text rotation is still a useful technique to know about and use. Just use it wisely (and perhaps not too often).

Do you have any good examples yourself using text rotation?

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.

Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. Help your dad find Chrome​