Word 2011 - Cell Shading Covers Vertically-Aligned Text

I have a table with 4 groups of merged cells in the left-most column, to act as a category "bracket" for the data to their right. It's a narrow column, so the text is aligned vertically. I want these 4 groups of merged cells to each have their own color cell shading. However, when I select a shade color, the text is covered up by the cell shading instead of showing through. Never had this problem before that I can remember. When I shade cells with horizontally-aligned text, the text is visible in front of the cell shading, even if the cells are merged.

What gives?

Can anyone shed any light on this?

I can't duplicate that here. Something else must be going on, however, I rarely if ever use that function so I may be out in left field. If you receive no further answers, you might want to post your question to the Microsoft Mac Office forum for Word. LINK

chscag said:

I can't duplicate that here. Something else must be going on, however, I rarely if ever use that function so I may be out in left field. If you receive no further answers, you might want to post your question to the Microsoft Mac Office forum for Word. LINK

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll post this there as well. Apparently the issue is the fact that the cells are merged. No idea why it should matter...guessing it's a bug. Here's a screen recording to show the issue (I made the cells all large for clarity, unlike the actual table I described).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqc4Uc4gle4

Yeah, that is weird. If it doesn't happen with the color shading of cells that are not merged, it likely is a bug. Or, as Microsoft would put it: Not a bug, it's a feature. Anyway, Office for the Mac 2014 should be released around October if the MS rumors are true. There are several bugs with the 2011 version that need fixing - especially with Outlook. Let me know what you find out if you post to the MS Mac Office forums.