FrameMaker allows you to easily rotate table cells, and this will remain rotated for PDF publishing.
If the Save Cell Rotation option is enabled in the Authoring Options dialog, table cell rotation will be preserved. This is typically done to specify long table column headings, but can be done on any table cell. Because this feature is not specifically supported by DITA, it’s not likely that this rotation will be applied to output types other than those generated through FrameMaker.
To rotate a cell, select the entire cell, then choose and specify the rotation angle. Save, close and reopen the file in FrameMaker, and the rotation will be applied.
This rotation information is stored as a DITA data element (the first child of the entry element). This data element has a @type attribute of “fmx-rotated” and a @value attribute that specifies the rotation angle. Because this is valid DITA markup, there should be no adverse reaction in other editors or processing tools. In fact, it would be possible for other processors to key off of this element to apply a cell rotation for other output types.