Vertical Text in Wpf TextBlock

Just in case anybody still comes across this post... here is a simple 100% xaml solution.

    <TabControl TabStripPlacement="Left">
        <TabItem Header="Tab 1">
            <TabItem.LayoutTransform>
                <RotateTransform Angle="-90"></RotateTransform>      
            </TabItem.LayoutTransform>
            <TextBlock> Some Text for tab 1</TextBlock>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="Tab 2">
            <TabItem.LayoutTransform>
                <RotateTransform Angle="-90"></RotateTransform>
            </TabItem.LayoutTransform>
            <TextBlock> Some Text for tab 2</TextBlock>
        </TabItem>
    </TabControl>

Nobody has yet mentioned the obvious and trivial way to stack the letters of an arbitrary string vertically (without rotating them) using pure XAML:

<ItemsControl
  ItemsSource="Text goes here, or you could use a binding to a string" />

This simply lays out the text vertically by recognizing the fact that the string is an IEnumerable and so ItemsControl can treat each character in the string as a separate item. The default panel for ItemsControl is a StackPanel, so the characters are laid out vertically.

Note: For precise control over horizontal positioning, vertical spacing, etc, the ItemContainerStyle and ItemTemplate properties can be set on the ItemsControl.

Just use a simple LayoutTransform..

<Label Grid.Column="0" Content="Your Text Here" HorizontalContentAlignment="Center">
  <Label.LayoutTransform>
    <TransformGroup>
        <RotateTransform Angle="90" />
        <ScaleTransform ScaleX="-1" ScaleY="-1"/>
    </TransformGroup>
  </Label.LayoutTransform>
</Label>

I don't think there is a straighforward of doing this withought changing the way the system inherently laysout text. The easiest solution would be to change the width of the textblock and supply a few extra properties like this:

<TextBlock TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold" Width="10" TextWrapping="Wrap">THIS IS A TEST</TextBlock>

This is hacky, but it does work.