How can I draw vertical text with CSS cross-browser? - html

Question

I want to rotate a single word of text by 90 degrees, with cross-browser (>= IE6, >= Firefox 2, any version of Chrome, Safari, or Opera) support. How can this be done?

Answer 1

Updated this answer with recent information (from CSS Tricks). Kudos to Matt and Douglas for pointing out the filter implementation.
.rotate {
-webkit-transform: rotate(-90deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-90deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(-90deg);
-o-transform: rotate(-90deg);
transform: rotate(-90deg);
/* also accepts left, right, top, bottom coordinates; not required, but a good idea for styling */
-webkit-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
-moz-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
-ms-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
-o-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
transform-origin: 50% 50%;
/* Should be unset in IE9+ I think. */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=3);
}
Old answer:
For FF 3.5 or Safari/Webkit 3.1, check out: -moz-transform (and -webkit-transform). IE has a Matrix filter(v5.5+), but I'm not certain how to use it. Opera has no transformation capabilities yet.
.rot-neg-90 {
/* rotate -90 deg, not sure if a negative number is supported so I used 270 */
-moz-transform: rotate(270deg);
-moz-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
-webkit-transform: rotate(270deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: 50% 50%;
/* IE support too convoluted for the time I've got on my hands... */
}

Answer 2

I am using the following code to write vertical text in a page.
Firefox 3.5+, webkit, opera 10.5+ and IE
.rot-neg-90 {
-moz-transform:rotate(-270deg);
-moz-transform-origin: bottom left;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-270deg);
-webkit-transform-origin: bottom left;
-o-transform: rotate(-270deg);
-o-transform-origin: bottom left;
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=1);
}

Answer 3

Another solution is to use an SVG text node which is supported by most browsers.
<svg width="50" height="300">
<text x="28" y="150" transform="rotate(-90, 28, 150)" style="text-anchor:middle; font-size:14px">This text is vertical</text>
</svg>
Demo: https://jsfiddle.net/bkymb5kr/
More on SVG text: http://tutorials.jenkov.com/svg/text-element.html

Answer 4

The CSS Writing Modes module introduces orthogonal flows with vertical text.
Just use the writing-mode property with the desired value.
span { margin: 20px; }
#vertical-lr { writing-mode: vertical-lr; }
#vertical-rl { writing-mode: vertical-rl; }
#sideways-lr { writing-mode: sideways-lr; }
#sideways-rl { writing-mode: sideways-rl; }
<span id="vertical-lr">
↑ (1) vertical-lr 至<br />
↑ (2) vertical-lr 至<br />
↑ (3) vertical-lr 至
</span>
<span id="vertical-rl">
↓ (1) vertical-rl 至<br />
↓ (2) vertical-rl 至<br />
↓ (3) vertical-rl 至
</span>
<span id="sideways-lr">
↓ (1) sideways-lr 至<br />
↓ (2) sideways-lr 至<br />
↓ (3) sideways-lr 至
</span>
<span id="sideways-rl">
↓ (1) sideways-rl 至<br />
↓ (2) sideways-rl 至<br />
↓ (3) sideways-rl 至
</span>

Answer 5

I adapted this from http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/css-text-rotation :
<style>
.Rotate-90
{
display: block;
position: absolute;
right: -5px;
top: 15px;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-90deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(-90deg);
}
</style>
<!--[if IE]>
<style>
.Rotate-90 {
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=3);
right:-15px; top:5px;
}
</style>
<![endif]-->

Answer 6

I've had problems trying to do it in pure CSS - depending on the font it can look a bit rubbish. As an alternative you can use SVG/VML to do it. There are libraries that help make it cross browser with ease e.g. Raphael and ExtJS. In ExtJS4 the code looks like this:
var drawComp = Ext.create('Ext.draw.Component', {
renderTo: Ext.getBody(), //or whatever..
height: 100, width: 100 //ditto..
});
var text = Ext.create('Ext.draw.Component', {
type: "text",
text: "The text to draw",
rotate: {
x: 0, y: 0, degrees: 270
},
x: -50, y: 10 //or whatever to fit (you could calculate these)..
});
text.show(true);
This will work in IE6+ and all modern browsers, however, unfortunately I think you need at least FF3.0.

Answer 7

If you use Bootstrap 3, you can use one of it's mixins:
.rotate(degrees);
Example:
.rotate(-90deg);

Answer 8

My solution that would work on Chrome, Firefox, IE9, IE10 (Change the degrees as per your requirement):
.rotate-text {
-webkit-transform: rotate(270deg);
-moz-transform: rotate(270deg);
-ms-transform: rotate(270deg);
-o-transform: rotate(270deg);
transform: rotate(270deg);
filter: none; /*Mandatory for IE9 to show the vertical text correctly*/
}

Answer 9

If CSS writing-mode: sideways-lr is what you prefer, and you happen to run into chromium/chrome based browser. You may try
{
writing-mode: vertical-rl;
transform: rotate(180deg);
}
so all modern browsers support it now.
reference: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=680331#c4