Vertical text in datagridview

A simpler and more effective renderer

Attach event either through designer, or with this line of code

dataGridView1.CellPainting += new DataGridView1_CellPainting(dataGridView1_CellPainting);

Event handler to draw rotated text

private void DataGridView1_CellPainting(object sender, DataGridViewCellPaintingEventArgs e) {
    // Vertical text from column 0, or adjust below, if first column(s) to be skipped
    if (e.RowIndex == -1 && e.ColumnIndex >= 0) {
        e.PaintBackground(e.CellBounds, true);
        e.Graphics.TranslateTransform(e.CellBounds.Left , e.CellBounds.Bottom);
        e.Graphics.RotateTransform(270);
        e.Graphics.DrawString(e.FormattedValue.ToString(),e.CellStyle.Font,Brushes.Black,5,5);
        e.Graphics.ResetTransform();
        e.Handled = true;
    }
}

You can achieve the result you want using custom cell painting for the header.

In answer to your comment asking for a way to align the text with the bottom of the cell, I've added comments to my code. They are hopefully clear.

You need the following code (say in the Form_Load after initializing components)

dataGridView1.ColumnHeadersHeightSizeMode = DataGridViewColumnHeadersHeightSizeMode.EnableResizing;
dataGridView1.ColumnHeadersHeight = 50;
dataGridView1.AutoSizeColumnsMode = DataGridViewAutoSizeColumnsMode.AllCellsExceptHeader;

// Here we attach an event handler to the cell painting event
dataGridView1.CellPainting += new DataGridViewCellPaintingEventHandler(dataGridView1_CellPainting);

Next you need something like the following code:

void dataGridView1_CellPainting(object sender, DataGridViewCellPaintingEventArgs e)
{
    // check that we are in a header cell!
    if (e.RowIndex == -1 && e.ColumnIndex >= 0)
    {
        e.PaintBackground(e.ClipBounds, true);
        Rectangle rect = this.dataGridView1.GetColumnDisplayRectangle(e.ColumnIndex, true);
        Size titleSize = TextRenderer.MeasureText(e.Value.ToString(), e.CellStyle.Font);
        if (this.dataGridView1.ColumnHeadersHeight < titleSize.Width)
        {
            this.dataGridView1.ColumnHeadersHeight = titleSize.Width;
        }

        e.Graphics.TranslateTransform(0, titleSize.Width);
        e.Graphics.RotateTransform(-90.0F);

        // This is the key line for bottom alignment - we adjust the PointF based on the 
        // ColumnHeadersHeight minus the current text width. ColumnHeadersHeight is the
        // maximum of all the columns since we paint cells twice - though this fact
        // may not be true in all usages!   
        e.Graphics.DrawString(e.Value.ToString(), this.Font, Brushes.Black, new PointF(rect.Y - (dataGridView1.ColumnHeadersHeight - titleSize.Width) , rect.X));

        // The old line for comparison
        //e.Graphics.DrawString(e.Value.ToString(), this.Font, Brushes.Black, new PointF(rect.Y, rect.X));


        e.Graphics.RotateTransform(90.0F);
        e.Graphics.TranslateTransform(0, -titleSize.Width);
        e.Handled = true;
    }
}