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To read content like books.

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69% accept rate
You're planning to rotate the screen and then tip the MBP on its side? – Doug Chase May 14 '09 at 16:44
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What software are you using to view these books? Perhaps one solution is to find software that lets you rotate the content (like PDF readers). – Andy May May 14 '09 at 16:58
Bah, @Doug Chase beat me to it! – squillman May 14 '09 at 17:07
Yes, I plan to put the MBP on its side. – J. Pablo Fernández May 14 '09 at 17:10
I'm using the built in PDF viewer. – J. Pablo Fernández May 14 '09 at 17:11
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migrated from serverfault.com Oct 25 '09 at 5:25

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

8 Answers

up vote -1 down vote accepted

According to http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=533972, "they disabled the ability to rotate notebook screens."

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Thought it seems to be technically possible, as explained on discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9290419 , the software to do it seems to not have been written yet. – J. Pablo Fernández Dec 5 '09 at 17:04
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Johan answer is correct – Pitto Jun 1 '11 at 10:55
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up vote 22 down vote
  1. If System preferences is open, close it (this only work once after opening system preferences. I have no idea why)
  2. press and hold option/alt + cmd + left click 'Display'
  3. Now there should be a button that says 'Rotation: Standard', click it and choose your rotation

Word of caution - it may be tricky to navigate the mousepad with a rotated screen. You feel drunk.

All the best,

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awesome trick - where do u ppl get this s.. :) ? – Devrim Nov 30 '10 at 0:27
helped me a lot.Thanx – Radek Feb 7 '11 at 0:55
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This should have been the accepted answer! – Jon Rodriguez Mar 13 '11 at 4:29
There's a driver patch for linux that rotates the touchpad, too. :D – Rob Nov 3 '11 at 18:28
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up vote 1 down vote

There's a clean and simple application for that: EasyPivot. It's available on the Mac App Store.

enter image description here

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up vote 0 down vote

According to http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9290419 the hardware supports the act of displaying sideways, but it appears that only SMSRotateD makes use of this.

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up vote 0 down vote

On MBP's with multi-touch, you can rotate content in Preview.app using the 'two finger swirl' ;) or you can use cmd-L or cmd-R. This works in OX 10.5.x, but I don't know about earlier versions.

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It really only rotates the current page, am I wrong? And then it can even be saved, destroying the PDF. – J. Pablo Fernández May 15 '09 at 8:23
cmd-L gives you the option to rotate the entire document and there's no reason you can rotate it back later, or not save the doc after you rotate it. – Dana the Sane May 15 '09 at 18:52
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up vote 0 down vote

I am running Windows XP on a MacBook and have found while holding the Ctrl and Option keys together and pressing the cursor move keys (home-pgup-pgdn-end) orients the screen in the direction of the cursor key.

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up vote 0 down vote

System Preferences -> Displays -> Rotation is a hidden setting:

  1. Go to System Preferences (in the Apple menu).
  2. While holding the alt/option and command keys, click 'Displays'.
  3. Adjust the Rotation setting. (If you don't see it, close System Preferences and start over.)
  4. A popup entitled "Confirm new display setting" appears.
  5. Rotate the physical screen.
  6. In the popup, click "Confirm" or "Revert".

This works for me on a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.8.

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up vote 0 down vote

Hold the Option and Command, click on Preferences and then on Display while holding the Option + Command. Only than you'll be given the option to change the rotation of the screen.

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