How to I create a table with vertical non-breaking header text?

Questions
1

Hi there,

I am trying to create a table where each of the header cells has its text rotated -90 degress without line breaks. I have gotten this far by hardcoding the cell height:

#let header = ("Name", "Maths", "Physics", "French", "Computer Science")
#let body = (
  "Tomás", "A+", "A", "B-", "A++",
  "Alice", "B", "B+", "A", "A",
  "Bob", "C+", "B-", "C", "A-",
)

#table(
  columns: header.len(),
  rows: (5cm, auto),
  align: center,

  table.header(
    ..header.map(h =>
      place(bottom + left, rotate(-90deg, strong(h)))
    )
  ),

  ..body.flatten(),
)

Note that my goal is to be able to read a CSV which has particularly long headers, and the cell contents are all single or double digit numbers, hence the reason for the automatic single-liner vertical header text.
The output of my snippet of code breaks “computer science” into two lines, and also has poor alignment on the first column:

image
image192×256 9.79 KB

I tried wrapping the text in a box() because I thought it would prevent the lines from breaking but it didn’t change the result.

I also found this very interesting post about headings at 45deg angles, but that technique didn’t prevent the lines from breaking.

Is there a way to accomplish the desired effect?

2

Welcome @Tomas_Badenes,

I used #show rotate: set block(fill: red) for a quick visualization of your issue:

test
test326×444 76.4 KB

As you can see from the places marked in red, the bounding boxes are wrong. The bounding boxes are from the content before the rotation. You need to add reflow: true to your rotation call to get the correct layout.

//debug
#show rotate: set block(fill: red)

#let header = ("Name", "Maths", "Physics", "French", "Computer Science")
#let body = (
  "Tomás", "A+", "A", "B-", "A++",
  "Alice", "B", "B+", "A", "A",
  "Bob", "C+", "B-", "C", "A-",
)

#table(
  columns: header.len(),
  rows: 2,
  align: center+bottom,

  table.header(
    ..header.map(h =>
      rotate(-90deg, reflow: true, strong(h))
    )
  ),

  ..body.flatten(),
)

test
test326×360 66.4 KB

With this you now also don’t have to hardcode the cell height or use place.

1 Like
3

That did the trick!
Thanks flokl