[tex-live] rotating column content of a two-column document

[Philip Taylor]

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

> Martin, you are right.  It's not related to TeX Live.
> 
> But is it really desirable to start a discussion from scratch
> somewhere else after so many responses?  I doubt.

I replied to this thread on TeXhax, bcc'ing TeX-Live so the members
thereof should know that I have tried to move it, but as the BCC'd copy
has not yet arrived back in my mailbox, I assume that the TeX Live list
doesn't like being BCC'd for some reason, so I repeat my reply below.

** Phil.
--------
[Diverted to TeXhax]

hw wrote:

> Why is this even difficult at all?  It shouldn't be ...

Suggestion. Use PdfTeX and \pdfliteral. Sections 4.2/4.3 of the Adobe
PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008) specification [1] state :

> • Translations are specified as [ 1 0 0 1 tx ty ], where tx and ty
> are the distances to translate the origin of the coordinate system in
> the horizontal and vertical dimensions, respectively.

> • Scaling is obtained by [ sx 0 0 sy 0 0 ]. This scales the
> coordinates so that 1 unit in the horizontal and vertical dimensions
> of the new coordinate system is the same size as sx and sy units,
> respectively, in the previous coordinate system.

> • Rotations are produced by [ cos θ sin θ −sin θ cos θ 0 0 ], which
> has the effect of rotating the coordinate system axes by an angle θ
> counter-clockwise.

> • Skew is specified by [ 1 tan α tan β 1 0 0 ], which skews the x
> axis by an angle α and the y axis by an angle β.

Therefore try :

	\setbox 0 = \hbox {\pdfliteral direct {0 1 -1 0 1050 150 cm}
		This text is rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise (0 1 -1 0)
			and translated through (1050 150) bp}
	\box 0
	\end

Philip Taylor
--------
[1]
http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf