The formatting of a table cell is done by the element <style:table-cell-properties> (17.18 ODF 1.4). That has the attribute style:writing-mode (20.404.6 ODF 1.4) with values lr-tb, rl-tb, tb-rl, tb-lr, sideways-rl, sideways-lr or page.

The implementation of this attribute is in a bad state. Problems are e.g.
- Cells in a spreadsheet do not use the style:writing-mode for East Asian vertical writing. That would be style:writing-mode="tb-rl" or style:writing-mode="tb-lr". But LO uses the attributes style:direction="ttb" (20.263 ODF 1.4) together with style:glyph-orientation-vertical="auto" (20.297 ODF 1.4). This is a workaround, because it cannot distinguish between the block direction right-to-left for Japanese and left-to-right for Mongolian.
- A table shape in Draw/Impress does no allow vertical writing mode at all.
- A table in Writer allows only the vertical modes tb-rl and sideways-lr (currently written as loext:bt-lr). LO can render mode tb-lr in Writer, if the writing mode is inherited from the page style by attribute value "page", that is "use superordinate object settings" in the UI.
- No table can render mode sideways-rl.