Can't adjust row height in table row with rotated text

[SarahB]

In an attempt to make the data fit into a table in the (horrible) way the client wants, I am trying to rotate my table column headers by 270°. With a small amount of padding, the row needs to be 30mm high to fit the text, but no matter how I try to enter the text, it defaults to 55.5mm, with an enormous amount of unnecessary white space. I've tried the following;

• Using the existing row, rotating the existing text. Row defaults to 55.5mm and cannot be reduced, despite the obvious unnecessary extra space.
• Deleted the existing text and copied/pasted from source document, then rotated.
• Deleted the existing text, copied/pasted from source document, with cell orientation already set to vertical.
• Deleted the existing text, retyped, then rotated.
• Deleted the existing text, retyped with cell orientation already set to vertical.
• Inserted new row and tried copying/pasting, typing from scratch both with cell orientation already set or rotating after data entry.

Nothing works and there is no obvious reason for the change in row height.

Examples below – 'Education and' fits in a 30mm row. Adding 'Employ' to the line below shifts the row height to 55.5mm. Why?

OK – no examples because, in order to take screenshots for the examples, I switched the rotation of the row again and the row height is now 1437.2mm. It's obviously a complete mess and I will just have to come up with a workaround.

Edit – just tried rotating the text in each cell individually, the default is 49mm until the last cell (with the least amount of text) which made the row height 3339.7mm 🙄

 

Edited April 25 by SarahB
Updated

[walt.farrell]

Just guessing, but this is perhaps the same issue described in bugs AF-3175 or AF-3176. Certainly there are aspects of what you've described that seem related to those.

[SarahB]

Thanks @walt.farrell, I obviously used the wrong combination of search terms as I didn't find anything!

It looks like this has been reported since 2021, with nothing done to fix it, so I guess a workaround is the only option.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome. And I think you're right that you'll need some workaround.

[SarahB]

I thought the workaround might be to have three separate columns for each of the lines of text I need in column headings (category, year, £) and setting each column width to replicate the paragraph spacing (one of the reported bugs you linked to suggests that the problem only existed where line/paragraph breaks are used). However, I can't get the Education and Employability column any narrower than this, without it reverting to a single line of text, even though there is no cell padding applied left & right. Do you know of a way to force the text to remain wrapped?

 

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, SarahB said:

Do you know of a way to force the text to remain wrapped?

I would need to have a sample file to play with, to guarantee I have the same data and settings as you. Without that this is only a guess, but you might insert a Line Break character (Shift+Enter) via the keyboard or the Text menu.

[SarahB]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I would need to have a sample file to play with, to guarantee I have the same data and settings as you. Without that this is only a guess, but you might insert a Line Break character (Shift+Enter) via the keyboard or the Text menu.

Unfortunately, having the line break is what causes the problem with the row height! It seems my options are to rely on Publisher to determine the text wrapping, in which case I have the right row height, but the column is too wide, or to insert a line break, in which case the column width is fine but the row height expands to a silly height. I'll work on another option tomorrow. Thanks for your help, as always, Walt!

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome, Sarah. Please let us know if you find something that works.