35 / Type

Vertical Writing Mode

Set down the page instead of across it, the way Chinese, Japanese and Korean have always been set. Each column is written downward, and they arrive right to left. Latin and figures turn sideways to follow — all but the year, held upright in a single square.

also called 竖排 · tate-gumi · vertical typesetting

Native in CSS and correct for CJK — the browser rotates Latin runs and places the punctuation itself. text-combine-upright is the piece almost nobody reaches for: it sets a two- to four-character number upright inside one em box, which is how a printed vertical page has always handled a date. This is the experimental lane: the writing here is material to look at, never the interface.

How it is built

writing-mode: vertical-rl; text-orientation: mixed; .year { text-combine-upright: all } /* 縦中横 */