October, 2007
In this tutorial you will learn how to change the look of a table so that the top two corners are rounded instead of square.
1. File > New > Document (Ctrl+N)
2. Create a document that is letterhead size with .25in margin on all sides.
3. Using the Type Tool(T) create a type box about half the size of the document.
4. With the type box selected insert a table by going to Table > Insert Table or Alt+Shift+Ctrl+T.
5. The Insert Table window will appear for you to input settings. Set the body rows to 30 and the Columns to 4.
6. You should have something that looks like this.
7. Now we want to add the headers to the first row. Starting with the first cell in the top left corner. As you can see I have entered Quantity in the first cell.
8. Now tab over to the next cell in the top row and add Description. Then Unit Price and in the last cell Amount.
9. After the text is entered adjust your cells width by running the mouse cursor over the vertical lines until you see the special cursor to adjust them. Leave the description area as the biggest and make the other three slightly smaller. It should look something like the image below.
10. Take your mouse cursor up to the top left corner of the table and you will see it change to the black arrow. Click to highlight the entire table.
11. In your swatches pallet choose Paper (or white) to make the background of all the cells white.
12. We do not want white in the background of the first row so we will need to change it back to none by selecting that row and going to the swatches pallet again to select the color none.
13. You will make the stroke on that row none and as you can see the lines will disappear from around the cells. So now you have no fill and no stroke on the first row of cells. This will allow you to create the curved corners and not have the square stroke appear over it.
14. We do want the strokes on the center two columns of the first row so we are going to put them back. The way to do this is to select those two columns.
15. Then in the swatches pallet change the stroke color back to black.
16. As you can see the corner cells are the only two now left without strokes on them.
17. Next create a rectangle filled with black that is the length of your table by using the Rectangle Tool(M).
18. We need to create rounded corners on this rectangle so go to Object > Corner Effects.
19. You will see the Corner Effects window appear. Change the drop down to Rounded and the size to 0.1 in. If you check the preview box you will see it change the rectangle corners.
20. Drag the rectangle with the rounded corners down so that the top of the rectangle falls where the top of the table is. You may need to send the rectangle to the back so that it only shows through in the first row.
21. As you can see the rectangle is covered by the cells that are filled with white but shows through in the first row because those cells have no fill. Unfortunately our text does not show because it too is black.
22. To fix this we will select the first row and change the text color by selecting the T icon and changing the color to paper.
23. Your text should now reappear.
24. You may have noticed that the bottom of the header row is not even all the way across. This is because we are missing a stroke on the top of the cell below the word Quantity. It also happed for the cell under Amount.
25. To fix this we will select the first second row and add a black stroke in the swatches pallet. This will add the top stroke to both of the cells that are missing it.
26. Now your header row is nice and even across the bottom.
27. So here is your final table with the top two corners rounded instead of squared.
Download the original source files from this tutorial in Zip format Here
Copyright (c) 2007,
