Chinese vertical text formatter. Convert horizontal text → traditional vertical layout (right-to-left, top-to-bottom). For calligraphy, scrolls, classical-style publications. Punctuation can rotate 90° or stay upright.
Chinese Vertical Text Formatter (中文竖排)
How to use
Enter text
Paste horizontal Chinese text. Each line becomes one column.
Pick direction
Right-to-left (classical): columns flow right to left — for scrolls, calligraphy. Left-to-right (modern).
Punctuation
Rotate 90° (classical): 。 , etc. lie horizontally — matches traditional vertical convention. Keep upright (modern): punctuation stays vertical.
Screenshot
After generating: right-click → Inspect → Capture node screenshot, or use a browser screenshot extension to save as image.
Chinese vertical text — 2,000 years of traditional typography
Vertical text has been the traditional Chinese layout since oracle bones. Chinese characters are square — they read both horizontally and vertically. Bamboo strips, silk scrolls, and paper books were all right-to-left, top-to-bottom vertical. Only in 1955 did the mainland's People's Daily switch to horizontal, ushering in horizontal simplified Chinese.
HK + Taiwan still preserve vertical
HK + Taiwan still extensively use vertical layout in newspaper supplements, literary magazines, classical-text publishing, calligraphy. Modern Japanese also keeps vertical (novels, broadsheet feature pages) — a shared East Asian visual tradition.
"Horizontal serves reading speed; vertical serves calligraphic beauty — both have their cultural roles."
Use cases
(1) Calligraphy preparation: preview spring couplets, scrolls, dui-lian before brushing. (2) Classical publishing: mock up book-cover designs and illustrations. (3) Art / design: vertical lends a distinctive "Chinese-style" aesthetic to tea-house menus, traditional brand identity. (4) Teaching: demonstrate ancient vs modern typography contrasts.
About this tool
Pure CSS + JavaScript (no backend, no library deps). Uses the modern writing-mode: vertical-rl CSS property — natively supported by all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge).
The People's Daily went horizontal in 1955; everything before was vertical
Oracle bone script (BC 1200) was already vertical — Chinese vertical-layout tradition is 3,200+ years old.
1955: People's Daily was the first to switch to horizontal — prior to that all Chinese was vertical.
HK / Taiwan / Japan still preserve vertical — newspaper supplements, literary magazines, novels, classical publications.
Vertical direction: right-to-left (classical) vs left-to-right (some modern Japanese) — Chinese classical insists on right-start.
Spring couplets (春联) run their two lines vertically, with the banner written across the top. Which side takes the upper line is custom, and mainland sources tie it to the banner: facing the door, a banner read right to left (the traditional way), or no banner, puts the upper line on the right; a banner read left to right puts it on the left (秦志法 of the Jiangsu Couplet Research Society, 2016; CCTV News and the Shenzhen Municipal Archives, 2025). We found no official statement for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore or Malaysia.
writing-mode: vertical-rl CSS property (2017) made web-based vertical layout mainstream-feasible.
Classical vertical punctuation (。 ,) rotates 90° and lies horizontally — modern vertical allows keeping them upright.
Classic of Poetry, Songs of Chu and other foundational literature were all originally vertical — shaped Chinese aesthetics for 2,000 years.
Bookmarks, calligraphy inscriptions, seals often use vertical — it's more elegant in narrow vertical spaces.
SG + MY Chinese publications are nearly all horizontal (English influence). HK + Taiwan preserve more vertical tradition.
Frequently Asked Questions
3 ways: (1) Right-click → Inspect → "Capture node screenshot"; (2) Browser screenshot extensions (e.g. GoFullPage); (3) System screenshot (Cmd+Shift+4 / Win+Shift+S).
Vertical punctuation requires OpenType vert font features. If a font lacks them, some characters may be slightly misaligned. Use fonts with vertical support (DM Serif Display, Source Han Serif).
No. All layout happens in your browser. Text never leaves your device.
Possible but not recommended. English letters end up sideways and are hard to read. The tool is designed for CJK languages.
Classical calligraphy and scrolls → right-start (the traditional order). Spring couplets follow the banner: if it reads right to left, or there is none, the upper line goes on the right, so use right-start; if it reads left to right, the upper line goes on the left, so use left-start (the mainland practice). Some modern Japanese novels use left-start. If in doubt, use right-start.
Classical tradition: 。 and , rotate to lie horizontally, matching visual rhythm. Modern vertical (especially Japanese) often keeps them upright. Both are valid — choose by purpose.
All major browsers since 2017 (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) — writing-mode: vertical-rl is a standard CSS property.
Yes. Below the preview, "Copy HTML" gives you the markup to paste into your own pages or documents.
Partially. Newspaper supplements, literary novels, classical-text publishing, calligraphy still extensively vertical. Daily news body text is horizontal.
Yes. All RECATOOLS tools are 100% free, ad-supported.
Method & sources
How it computes
Text is laid out in vertical columns using the browser's own vertical writing mode, with columns flowing right to left in the traditional arrangement or left to right in the modern one, and characters running top to bottom within each column. Punctuation is handled per character: some marks rotate 90° when set vertically and others stay upright, and that behaviour is defined by Unicode rather than chosen here.
What this tool implements
- Layout uses CSS vertical writing mode rather than inserting line breaks, so the text stays selectable, copyable and reflowable instead of becoming a picture of vertical text.
- Punctuation orientation follows the Unicode Vertical Orientation property: some characters rotate when set vertically, some remain upright, and applying one rule to all of them is the usual way vertical text is got wrong.
- Both column directions are offered because both are correct in context — right-to-left is the traditional arrangement, left-to-right the modern one, and neither is a default that suits every text.
- Nothing is sent anywhere; the layout is done in the browser.
Sources
- UAX #50, Unicode Vertical Text Layout: https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr50/ — the Vertical_Orientation property that decides which characters rotate and which stay upright when text is set vertically.
- CSS Writing Modes Level 3: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-writing-modes-3/ — the `writing-mode` and `text-orientation` behaviour this layout relies on, including vertical-rl.
What can make this go out of date
- Browser support for vertical writing modes is good but not identical everywhere, and the exact rotation of a given punctuation mark can differ between rendering engines. The Unicode property is the specification; what you see is the browser's reading of it.
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.