Skip to main content

Hi all,


I am a relative newbie so this could well be me doing something silly but… the autolayout horizontal and vertical direction buttons don’t seem to be doing anything.


I wanted to make some text drop down vertically so I did the following:



  • Typed the text

  • created an frame around it

  • Added auto layout to the frame

  • clicked on the vertical direction button in auto layout

  • Nothing happened!


Please can you let me know what I’m doing wrong? Or if not if there’s another/better way of changing the direction of text?


Thanks very much in advance

Hey @Elizabeth_Lands 👋


That’s not how autolayout works 😅 but here’s a quick video from Figma that might help you understand this better. Essentially Autolayout is a content organization tool and controls the direction of a set of elements, not just a text box.




Figma in 5: Auto Layout



If this is not enough let me know 😄

Hi Bruno,

Thanks very much for replying. I know it’s not exactly what auto layout is for but not sure why it doesn’t work anyway?

Do you know if there is there another way to get text to display vertically? - I imagine it’s probably something really basic! 🤦‍♀️

Hi @Elizabeth_Lands. We still don’t know what you want.


Do you want the text to be rotated 90°? Set this angle on the property panel.


Or do you want the text to be in its normal position but grow vertically? Set “Auto height” in the “Text” section of the property panel.

Hi - that was it! The text to be rotated 90°. Thanks very much, problem solved.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

Terms & ConditionsCookie settings