Let text files rotate with Excel AutoShapes

When we use an AutoShape in Excel, we often need to add some text to the AutoShape. Did you find such a problem when you were using it? When you add text to an AutoShape, the text cannot rotate with the AutoShape. This article will explain how to resolve this problem.

Figure 1 Text cannot be rotated with AutoShapes

One way to solve this problem

1. Create AutoShapes and text as shown on the left of Figure 1.

2. Hold down the CTRL key while you click the AutoShape to select it. Holding down the CTRL key allows us to select only the AutoShape without selecting the text in the shape.

3. While holding down the SHIFT key, select menu command "Edit > Copy Picture". Be sure to hold down the SHIFT key, or you won't see the Copy Picture command.

4. In the Copy Picture dialog box, select the "as shown on screen" and "Bitmap" radio buttons, as shown in Figure 2, and click the OK button.

Figure 2 The Copy Picture dialog box

5. Select menu command "Edit > Paste".

The above steps allow you to make your AutoShape and text a bitmap picture, and you can naturally rotate the text freely with the graphic because they are already a whole, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Rotate the generated bitmap picture

The disadvantage of this approach is that you can no longer modify the formatting of text and AutoShapes.

The solution for the second

Another way is to remove the original text from the AutoShape and use the WordArt instead. This allows you to combine AutoShapes and WordArt, and then rotate them, before and after the rotation, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 using WordArt