How to display vertical text in table headers with auto height / without text overflow?

I want to display rotated text as table headers, using the CSS transform property. The header row should adjust its height as needed, but instead the rotated text just overflows:

demo fiddle

My question is, how to get the table header to grow as needed? Essentially it should look like this:

If you use a pseudo element and vertical-padding, you may basicly draw a square box or <td> : http://jsfiddle.net/qjzwG/319/

.verticalTableHeader {
    text-align:center;
    white-space:nowrap;
    transform-origin:50% 50%;
    transform: rotate(90deg);
    
}
.verticalTableHeader:before {
    content:'';
    padding-top:110%;/* takes width as reference, + 10% for faking some extra padding */
    display:inline-block;
    vertical-align:middle;
}

If you want to keep <td> ith a small width, table-layout:fixed + width might help. http://jsfiddle.net/qjzwG/320/

.verticalTableHeader {
    text-align:center;
    white-space:nowrap;
    transform: rotate(90deg);
    
}
.verticalTableHeader p {
    margin:0 -100% ;
    display:inline-block;
}
.verticalTableHeader p:before{
    content:'';
    width:0;
    padding-top:110%;/* takes width as reference, + 10% for faking some extra padding */
    display:inline-block;
    vertical-align:middle;
}
table {
    text-align:center;
    table-layout : fixed;
    width:150px
}

If you want table to still be able to grow from it's content but not from width of <th> , using a wrapper with a hudge negative margin opposite to dir/direction of document might do : apparently, the closest to your needs, http://jsfiddle.net/qjzwG/320/

<table border="1">
    <tr>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader"><p>First</p></th>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader"><p>Second-long-header</p></th>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader"><p>Third</p></th>
    </tr>

.verticalTableHeader {
    text-align:center;
    white-space:nowrap;
    transform: rotate(90deg);
}
.verticalTableHeader p {
    margin:0 -999px;/* virtually reduce space needed on width to very little */
    display:inline-block;
}
.verticalTableHeader p:before {
    content:'';
    width:0;
    padding-top:110%;
    /* takes width as reference, + 10% for faking some extra padding */
    display:inline-block;
    vertical-align:middle;
}
table {
    text-align:center;
}

HTML from demo and base :

<table border="1">
    <tr>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader">First</th>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader">Second</th>
      <th class="verticalTableHeader">Third</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
      <td>foo</td>
    </tr>
</table>

For older IE , you need to use writing-mode (CSS) :http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/ms531187%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

use

writing-mode: vertical-lr;

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/writing-mode

There are new (experimental) CSS3 feature which does what exactly that: [writing-mode] 1.

You have to apply it on a div inside the table cell:

.vrt-header th {
  writing-mode: vertical-lr;
  min-width: 50px; /* for firefox */
}

<table class='vrt-header'>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>First</th><th>Second</th><th>Third</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td><td>foo</td><td>foo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td><td>foo</td><td>foo</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>foo</td><td>foo</td><td>foo</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Thanks to @gman - it works in Firefox but not in Chrome. One can wrap the content of th in div to have the vertical text in Chrome js-fiddle demo but it feels like a kludge.

I struggled to get my <th>'s aligned exactly how I wanted them (even if some are multiple lines).
This is what worked for me:

html { font-family: Helvetica; } table { border-collapse: collapse; } td, th { border: 1px solid BurlyWood; } td { text-align: center; } th { background-color: NavajoWhite; color: SaddleBrown; width:50px;
vertical-align: bottom; } th span { writing-mode: sideways-lr; /* +90°: use 'tb-rl' / text-align: left; / +90°: use 'right' */ padding:10px 5px 0; }

First	Second	Third Column
foo	foo	foo
foo	foo	foo

I figured I'd share, partly as reference for "future me". 

well... I know this is not the best solution but you can correct it with client side javascript. In jQuery it would look like this:

$(".verticalTableHeader").each(function(){$(this).height($(this).width())})

as for a pure HTML or CSS solution, I think this is a browser limitation.

try this:

.vertical-header span {
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  transform: rotate(180deg);
  text-align: left;
  max-height: 150px;
}

<table border=1>
  <tr>
    <th class="vertical-header"><span>Firstname</span></th>
    <th class="vertical-header"><span>Lastname</span></th>
    <th class="vertical-header"><span>Age</span></th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Jill</td>
    <td>Smith</td>
    <td>50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Eve</td>
    <td>Jackson</td>
    <td>94</td>
  </tr>
</table>

To avoid js using I can propose to use flex in first table row. A little messy with borders in headers, but it could be fixed in thin setup:

.header-row {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
}

span {
    writing-mode: vertical-lr;
    transform: rotate(180deg);
    width: 23px;
    border-left: 1px solid black;
}

table {
  border: 1px solid black;
  border-spacing: 0px;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid black;
  width: 20px;
}

<table>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td colspan="5" style="padding:0;border:none">
      <div class="header-row">
        <span>Header fsdafasd</span>
        <span>Header fsda</span>
        <span>Header fsdafa fsdaf</span>
        <span>Header asdf</span>
        <span>Header fsda</span>
      </div>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Test name fadsf</td>
    <td>1</td>
    <td>2</td>
    <td>3</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>4</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Test name</td>
    <td>1</td>
    <td>2</td>
    <td>3</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>4</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Test name</td>
    <td>1</td>
    <td>2</td>
    <td>3</td>
    <td>4</td>
    <td>4</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<thead><tr><th class="rotate"><div>header 1></div></th><th class="rotate"><div>header 2></div></th></tr></thead>

apply CSS to rotate class

th.rotate {
		height: 110px; /* header height */
		white-space: nowrap;
	}

th.rotate > div {
	transform:
	   translate(25px, 51px)
	   rotate(90deg);
       /* rotate(315deg); for diagnol */
	width: 30px;
	margin-left: -35px;
	margin-top: -30px;
}

This works for me

css

.v-text {
    transform: rotate(270deg);
    display: block;
 }

html

<table>
  <th>HEADER 1</th>
  <th>
    <p class="v-text">VERTICAL</p>
  </th>
<table>

<style type="text/css">
		

.rotate > div {
    text-align: center;
    white-space:nowrap;
    g-origin:50% 50%;
    -webkit-transform: rotate(-90deg);
    -moz-transform: rotate(-90deg;
    -ms-transform: rotate(-90deg;
    -o-transform: rotate(-90deg;
    transform: rotate(-90deg);
}
       

https://jsfiddle.net/amrangry/w4ja3qo2/1/

I had a hard time getting these tweaks to work in a consistent manner. Just in case this helps someone, my solution was to create images of vertical text.