How to change alignment in Excel, justify, distribute and fill cells ... Change text orientation (rotate text) Click the Orientation button on the Home tab, in the Alignment group, to rotate text up or down and write vertically or sideways. These options come in especially handy for labeling narrow columns: Indent text in a cell. In Microsoft Excel, the Tab key does not indent text in a cell like it does, say, in Microsoft Word; it just moves the pointer to the ...