New environment question

Question

I am trying to create a new environment that works similar to the {\bfseries } command.

For example:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{rotating}

\newenvironment{stext}
{\begin{sideways} \bfseries \raggedleft }
{\end{sideways}}

\begin{document}

\begin{stext}
This is an example environment.
\end{stext}

\end{document}

In the above example, I want to redefine the stext environment so that it works as follows:

{\stext This is an example environment.}

Here is the use case for this new environment:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{array}
\newcolumntype{$}{>{\global\let\currentrowstyle\relax}}
\newcolumntype{^}{>{\currentrowstyle}}
\newcommand{\rowstyle}[1]{\gdef\currentrowstyle{#1}%
  #1\ignorespaces
}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{$l^c^r}
\rowstyle{\rotatebox{-90}}% <- I know, the usage is wrong. 
abc & abc & abc\\
b & b & b \\
c & c & c \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

The aim here is to get the text in the first row sideways so that they don't occupy as much width. For the \rowstyle command to work properly, I need an environment which can be invoked like so:

{\rotatetext Rotated text}

It's quite hard to understand why you'd want this. Can you give more motivation? — egreg, Feb 14 '12 at 16:43
You could create a macro that wraps the text in the environment, e.g. \stext{Your text}; this is ALMOST like what you stated that you wanted... — Scribblemacher, Feb 14 '12 at 18:10
@Werner, yes. It should do the same thing as the stext environment in the MWE. — Adi, Feb 14 '12 at 18:23
@egreg For instance, I want the text in a row of a large table to be sideways so that it doesn't occupy as much width. I am using the solution from here to apply a row style. However, the \rowstyle command here takes formatting commands in the form {\formatting Text goes here}. I cannot use a begin{environment}-\end{environment} construct here. — Adi, Feb 14 '12 at 18:31
@Adi I don't think it's possible to do what you want with that \rowstyle. Consider \rotatebox instead of the sideways environment. — egreg, Feb 14 '12 at 18:38
@egreg, I have updated my post with some details as to where and how I want to use it. I am afraid, I don't see how \rotatebox helps in this case. — Adi, Feb 14 '12 at 18:55

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 09 '17 at 07:19

Here is an option using a slightly modified version of Herbert's answer to An improved \rowstyle that takes the cell contents as an argument:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}% http://ctan.org/pkg/graphicx
\usepackage{array}% http://ctan.org/pkg/array
\newsavebox\TBox
\newif\ifrotate\rotatefalse
\newcolumntype{C}{%
  >{\begin{lrbox}{\TBox}} 
  c 
  <{\end{lrbox}\ifrotate\rotatebox{90}{\usebox\TBox}\else\usebox\TBox\fi}}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{*3C}
  \global\rotatetrue abc & abc & abc \\ \global\rotatefalse
  b & b & b \\
  c & c & c \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

The idea behind this solution is to box the contents in \TBox and conditionally rotate it or not, based on \ifrotate - a boolean value set to true (\rotatetrue) or false (\rotatefalse).

It's usage should be clear from the example - place \global\rotatetrue in the first entry you want to rotate in that row, and \global\rotatefalse after the last entry. For convenience you could also define these as "switches" using

\newcommand{\rotateon}{\global\rotatetrue}% rotate switch ON
\newcommand{\rotateoff}{\global\rotatefalse}% rotate switch OFF

If you want different alignment for the respective columns, you can define an L and R column (say), similar to my C.

graphicx provides the \rotatebox{<angle>}{<stuff>} command to rotate <stuff> through an angle of <angle> degrees.

Quick follow-up question: How can I modify the code so as to allow text wrapping in the rotated text? I tried changing the column alignment from c to p, but that didn't work. — Adi, Feb 15 '12 at 13:00
@Adi: You can place the contents in a \parbox of a specific width. For example, use \parbox{2cm}{abc def ghi jkl} in the above example for one of the header entries. — Werner, Feb 16 '12 at 07:33

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