Make Diagonal Text In Word

Diagonal Text Using Text Boxes

There are several reasons why you might want to make diagonal text in Word. The first is to display a diagonal watermark across each page of your document, in the background. Or you might just want to spice up the presentation. Whatever the reason, making the text diagonal is pretty easy, and there are a couple of ways to do it.

Probably the easiest way is to do it is to insert your text into a text box and then rotate the text box. Go to the Insert tab, and in the Text group click Text Box.

Insert Simple Text Box

In the gallery that appears just select Simple Text Box. The text box appears on the page with some default text in it. You can start typing to replace the dummy text with your own. Don’t worry about where the box is positioned; you can move it by hovering your cursor over it until you see the cursor turn into crosshairs, and then click and drag it to where you want it.

Make sure the text box is selected. You can tell when it’s selected because you will see its resize handles on the edges and corners.

Selected Text Box

What you will also see is the rotate handle (see above). Click on the rotate handle and drag to the left. This rotates the text in an anticlockwise direction. Click and drag to the right to rotate in a clockwise direction. Either way, you have your diagonal text.

If there is a border on the text box that you want to remove, right click on the box and select Format Shape.

Format Shape

In the format shape panel that opens, expand Line and select No line. The border on the text box is removed, and then you have beautiful diagonal text.

No Line

If you want diagonal text that is more flashy, you can always use WordArt. The process is the same: go to the Insert tab, but this time click on WordArt in the Text group. Choose the style you want to use and then start typing in the box. The same principle applies when rotating the text, because it actually resides in a text box, as in the previous example.