(1) In printing, the number of degrees an object is rotated relative to a reference; for example, the orientation of an overlay relative to the logical page origin, or the orientation of printing on a page relative to the page coordinates. Orientation usually applies to blocks of information, whereas character rotation applies to individual characters. See also character rotation.
(2) The orientation of a stream refers to the type of data which may pass through the stream. A stream without orientation is one on which no stream I/O has been performed.