Picture environment “rotating” text

Question

I'd like to know how can I rotate text in the picture environment.

I want to typeset some text from bottom-to-top, making it to appear sideways.

Basically, the following

\begin{picture}(...,...)
  \put(0,0){\rotate{-90}{Text.}}
\end{picture}

should be printed like

(The text's background is gray, because it's funnier that way!)

Answer 1

You could use rotatebox from the graphicx package.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\begin{picture}(50,50)
  \put(0,0){\rotatebox{90}{Text}}
\end{picture}
\end{document}