Rotate PDF Text in Java

Aspose.PDF for Java lets you rotate individual text fragments as well as whole text paragraphs.

Rotate individual text fragments

Use this example when several text fragments on the same line should use different rotation angles.

1. Create a new PDF document and add a page.
2. Create text fragments with the required rotation values.
3. Append them with TextBuilder and save the result.

public static void rotateTextInsidePdf1(Path outputFile) {
       try (Document document = new Document()) {
           Page page = document.getPages().add();

           TextFragment textFragment1 = new TextFragment("main text");
           textFragment1.setPosition(new Position(100, 600));
           textFragment1.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
           textFragment1.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));

           TextFragment textFragment2 = new TextFragment("rotated text");
           textFragment2.setPosition(new Position(200, 600));
           textFragment2.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
           textFragment2.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
           textFragment2.getTextState().setRotation(45);

           TextFragment textFragment3 = new TextFragment("rotated text");
           textFragment3.setPosition(new Position(300, 600));
           textFragment3.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
           textFragment3.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
           textFragment3.getTextState().setRotation(90);

           TextBuilder builder = new TextBuilder(page);
           builder.appendText(textFragment1);
           builder.appendText(textFragment2);
           builder.appendText(textFragment3);

           document.save(outputFile.toString());
       }
   }

Rotate lines inside a text paragraph

Use this example when a paragraph should contain both normal and rotated lines.

1. Create a new PDF document and add a page.
2. Create a TextParagraph and append text fragments with different rotation settings.
3. Add the paragraph to the page and save the document.

public static void rotateTextInsidePdf2(Path outputFile) {
    try (Document document = new Document()) {
        Page page = document.getPages().add();
        TextParagraph paragraph = new TextParagraph();
        paragraph.setPosition(new Position(200, 600));

        TextFragment textFragment1 = new TextFragment("rotated text");
        textFragment1.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment1.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
        textFragment1.getTextState().setRotation(45);

        TextFragment textFragment2 = new TextFragment("main text");
        textFragment2.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment2.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));

        TextFragment textFragment3 = new TextFragment("another rotated text");
        textFragment3.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment3.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
        textFragment3.getTextState().setRotation(-45);

        paragraph.appendLine(textFragment1);
        paragraph.appendLine(textFragment2);
        paragraph.appendLine(textFragment3);

        TextBuilder textBuilder = new TextBuilder(page);
        textBuilder.appendParagraph(paragraph);

        document.save(outputFile.toString());
    }
}

Rotate paragraph fragments without explicit positions

Use this example when rotated text should be added through the normal page paragraph flow.

1. Create a new PDF document and add a page.
2. Create several text fragments with different rotation values.
3. Add them to the page paragraph collection and save the PDF.

public static void rotateTextInsidePdf3(Path outputFile) {
    try (Document document = new Document()) {
        Page page = document.getPages().add();

        TextFragment textFragment1 = new TextFragment("main text");
        textFragment1.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment1.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));

        TextFragment textFragment2 = new TextFragment("rotated text");
        textFragment2.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment2.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
        textFragment2.getTextState().setRotation(315);

        TextFragment textFragment3 = new TextFragment("rotated text");
        textFragment3.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
        textFragment3.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
        textFragment3.getTextState().setRotation(270);

        page.getParagraphs().add(textFragment1);
        page.getParagraphs().add(textFragment2);
        page.getParagraphs().add(textFragment3);

        document.save(outputFile.toString());
    }
}

Rotate complete paragraphs

Use this example when the entire paragraph block should be rotated while each line keeps shared styling.

1. Create a new PDF document and add a page.
2. Build several TextParagraph objects with paragraph-level rotation.
3. Create the lines with a shared helper method, append them, and save the document.

public static void rotateTextInsidePdf4(Path outputFile) {
    try (Document document = new Document()) {
        Page page = document.getPages().add();

        for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
            TextParagraph paragraph = new TextParagraph();
            paragraph.setPosition(new Position(200, 600));
            paragraph.setRotation(i * 90 + 45);

            TextFragment textFragment1 = rotatedLine("Paragraph Text", false);
            TextFragment textFragment2 = rotatedLine("Second line of text", false);
            TextFragment textFragment3 = rotatedLine("And some more text...", true);

            paragraph.appendLine(textFragment1);
            paragraph.appendLine(textFragment2);
            paragraph.appendLine(textFragment3);

            TextBuilder builder = new TextBuilder(page);
            builder.appendParagraph(paragraph);
        }

        document.save(outputFile.toString());
    }
}

private static TextFragment rotatedLine(String text, boolean underline) {
    TextFragment fragment = new TextFragment(text);
    fragment.getTextState().setFontSize(12);
    fragment.getTextState().setFont(FontRepository.findFont("TimesNewRoman"));
    fragment.getTextState().setBackgroundColor(Color.getLightGray());
    fragment.getTextState().setForegroundColor(Color.getBlue());
    fragment.getTextState().setUnderline(underline);
    return fragment;
}