§9.8.1

Rotated and Diagonal Content

A rotated table or a split corner cell—read it how?

✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §9.8.1 in the RFC ↗

The requirement

A rotated table MUST be read in its own orientation, never in page orientation. A diagonally split corner cell MUST stay one cell holding both labels separated by a slash — Region \ Year — the label across the top first.

When it applies

One printed cell carrying two labels: MONTH across the top, COUNTRY down the side, split by a diagonal rule. There is only one cell to put them in.

Reading the examples. Each one pairs a source page with the output the rule expects. ✅ Sample: the rule applies. ❌ Counter-sample: it looks like it applies and does not, or a rendering got it wrong. A non-conforming output, in red, is shown only for contrast. … marks content left out of an excerpt.

A landscape table on a portrait page

A table printed sideways MUST be rendered as a reader would read it after turning the page: rows are rows as the table reads, not as the page is filed.
Sideways text MUST NOT be transcribed in page order.

Vertical column headers

Labels printed at 90° over narrow columns are ordinary headers. Each MUST be rendered as normal header text, upright, in the column it heads.

Sketch of the printed page — layout, not output

| ⤴A⤴ | ⤴B⤴ | ⤴C⤴ |   ← headers printed vertically
| 1   | 2   | 3   |

Nothing about the rotation changes the structure — it is a typesetting choice made because the column is narrow.

The diagonally split corner cell

Sketch of the printed page — layout, not output

| Region ╲ Year | 2023 | 2024 |   ← one printed cell, two labels
| East          | 40   | 44   |

Both labels MUST survive: one names the stub column, the other names the header row, and losing either leaves an axis unnamed.
There is one printed cell, so it MUST stay one cell, the two labels separated by a slash — Region \ Year — in the reading order the diagonal implies: the label across the top first, then the one down the side.
The corner MUST NOT be split into two header cells.

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a landscape page in a portrait document

A paper page rendered sideways: the body text, both tables and the Table 3 caption read bottom-to-top. Upright, the two tables are ordinary tables; nothing about them is special except that a reader has to turn the page. The page is cut off after the Kestrel 33B row of the second table, so nothing below it is rendered.

What makes this the useful case is that the rotation is not marked anywhere. There is no landscape flag; the only signal is that the text runs the wrong way. A rendering in page orientation transposes headers and rows and still looks structurally plausible.

Note also the blank corner cells above both stub columns, and the en-dashes standing in for missing benchmark scores — see Barely-Existing Columns and Headers (§9.3.1) and Marks and Symbols in Cells (§9.6.6).

Source page

Expected output · both tables

**Table 3.** Zero-shot performance on Common Sense Reasoning tasks.
	BoolQ	PIQA	SIQA	HellaSwag	WinoGrande	ARC-e	ARC-c	OBQA
Orbis-3 175B	60.5	81.0	–	78.9	70.2	68.8	51.4	57.6
Fenwick 280B	79.3	81.8	50.6	79.2	70.1	–	–	–
Halcyon 70B	83.7	81.8	51.3	80.8	74.9	–	52.5	50.4
Aurora 62B	84.8	80.5	–	79.7	77.0	75.2	–	–
Aurora-cont 62B	83.9	81.4	–	80.6	77.0	–	–	–
Aurora 540B	88.0	82.3	–	83.4	81.1	76.6	53.0	53.4
Kestrel 7B	76.5	79.8	48.9	76.1	70.1	72.8	47.6	57.2
Kestrel 13B	78.1	80.1	50.4	79.2	73.0	74.8	52.7	56.4
Kestrel 33B	83.1	82.3	50.4	82.8	76.0	80.0	57.8	58.6
Kestrel 65B	85.3	82.8	52.3	84.2	77.0	78.9	56.0	60.2

	0-shot	1-shot	5-shot	64-shot
Orbis-3 175B	14.6	23.0	–	29.9
Fenwick 280B	10.1	–	24.5	28.2
Halcyon 70B	16.6	–	31.5	35.5
Aurora 62B	18.1	26.5	–	27.6
Aurora 540B	21.2	29.3	–	39.6
Kestrel 33B	24.9	28.3	32.9	36.0

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a vertical stub header

The leftmost column carries a label running bottom-to-top along the side of the table, spanning every body row, while all the other headers sit horizontally. It labels the whole stub, which is why the typesetter turned it — there was no width for it any other way. The coloured shapes in the second column have no legend on the page, so each is described as drawn.

The rotation is a layout constraint, not a property of the header: the label is rendered upright as a normal header cell spanning the rows it spans. The table's bilingual text and its landscape setting change nothing either.

Source page

Expected output

		SITE Iddoo	GAUGE HEIGHT cfs = fiitii kiyuubii sekondii keessatti	PHASE 1 – NO FLOODING MARSAA 1 – LOLAAN HIN JIRU.	PHASE 2 – MINOR FLOODING MARSAA 2 – LOLAA XIQQAA.
FLOOD DAMAGE WATCH AND WARNING MIDHAAWWAN LOLA ILAALUU FI AKEEKKACHIISA	[icon: blue circle]	NORTH FORK ALDERBROOK RIVER Yaa'aan gara maqaalaa Alderbrook	20,400 cfs Guraandhala. 2020	6,000 cfs – Hojjattoonni Cedarholt County of eegannoo irratti argamu.	10,000 cfs – Rakkoolleen galoo qarqara lagaa fi kusiin loola mudachuu mala.
	[icon: orange square]	CEDARHOLT TOLT Dhiheenya Magaalaa Cedarholt kan yaa'uu	13,800 cfs Amajjii. 2009	2,500 cfs – Hojjattoonni Cedarholt County of eegannoo irratti argamu.	17,400 cfs – Hidha qarqara kibbaa kan jidduRiqiicha, Snoqualmie Valley Trail fi Riqiicha Highway 203 bishaaniin liqimfamuu mudachu dandaa'a.
	[icon: green triangle]	ISSAQUAH-STYLE CREEK Dheeriina Hobart, Guyyaa: Magaalaa Cedarholt	9.53 ft Sadaasa. 1990	6.5 ft – Hojjattoonni Cedarholt County of eegannoo irratti argamu. Issaquah Public Works fi Deetaroffiin ol eegannoo eegaleera.	7.5 ft – Naannoolee yeroo hunda holaan mudatu lolaa eegu. Kutaan bishaanii daandiirratti cufamu karaawwan muraasa.
	[icon: red circle]	CEDARHOLT GREEN kan safaraman yookaan kan maqaalaa	11,700 cfs* Mudde. 1959 yeroof turee ilaalamu*	5,000 cfs – Hojjattoonni Cedarholt County of eegannoo irratti argamu.	7,000 cfs – Golba yaa'aa gubbaa Magaalaa Auburn keessaatti loola gammoojjii.
	[icon: purple square]	CEDARHOLT WHITE kan safaraman yaa'aa Cedarholt kan dhiheenya	11,700 cfs Amajjii. 2009	4,000 cfs – Hojjattoonni Cedarholt County of eegannoo irratti argamu.	5,000 cfs – Lolaan qarqara lagaa kan yaa'aa gubbaa Magaalaa Auburn madda dandaa'a.

✅ SampleThe rule applies

a landscape reference table on a portrait page

Table C.1. (Cont.): twenty-five chemicals with CAS numbers, formulae and properties, printed sideways. Upright it is an ordinary eleven-column table (No. plus ten property columns); the header cells carry units and subscripts (D_a, cm² s⁻¹), the formulae carry subscripts, and one melting point prints 123.5 decomposes on two lines. The page number C-6, printed beside the title in the table's own orientation, is rendered first as the page's header band.

Source page

Expected output · excerpt

C-6

**Table C.1. (Cont.)**
No.	Chemical	CAS No.	Molecular Formula	Molecular Weight (g mol^-1)	Melting Point (°C)	Boiling Point (°C)	Molecular Volume	Le Bas Molar Volume (cm³ mol^-1)	Diffusivity in Air D_a (cm² s^-1)	Diffusivity in Water D_w x10⁵ (cm² s^-1)
101	Fluoroethanoic anhydride	613-45-1	C₈Cl₁₅FO	272.82	-68.5	151.7	113.4	87.8	0.1087	0.443
102	Chlorexamine	399-22-6	C₇H₂F₆N	301.20	47.0	317.1	248.9	166.4	0.1276	0.83
103	Bromopentanol	575-47-6	C₃H₅BrO	214.75	73.2	-10.3	98.4	105.9	0.0472	0.626
…
113	Hexafluoro-cresylamine	861-49-4	CH₃F	48.54	123.5 decomposes	377.2	55.7	154.1	0.0462	1.365
114	Isobutyl nitrosourea	794-26-3	C₅H₈ClNO	241.12	136.2	41.0	188.3	183.6	0.1268	1.6
…
125	Morpholino thioacetate	50-89-2	C₄H₆O₄	164.15	41.8	194.8	310.4	85.0	0.1045	0.634

Rule id tables-rotated-and-diagonal-content · tables orientation headers

When it applies

A landscape table on a portrait page

Vertical column headers

The diagonally split corner cell

Neighbouring rules, and how they differ

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