You can customize picture box and text box shapes by converting the boxes to polygons and manipulating the handles. You can use this technique to create boxes with one, two, or three rounded corners.
Creating a picture box with rounded corners:
- Select the rounded-corner Picture Box tool and draw a rounded-corner picture box.
- Enter a value between 0' and 2' in the Corner Radius field in the Measurements palette (View > Show Measurements) to specify a custom corner radius.
Creating a text box with rounded corners:
- Select the Text Box tool and draw a regular box.
- Choose Item > Box Shape (the round-corner shape) to convert the box from square- corners to round-corners.
Drawing guides for the square corners:
- Choose View > Show Guides if guides are not currently displayed and View > Show Rulers if the rulers are not currently displayed.
- Select the Item tool or the Content tool, click one of the rulers, and drag the guide to a side of the box. Repeat this process for each side of the box. These guides indicate the square corners of the box.
- Make sure Snap to Guides is checked under the View menu. Using the handles in the middle of each side, snap the sides of the box to the guides.
Changing the box shape and creating square corners:
- Choose Item > Box Shape > (the polygon shape) to change the box to a polygon.
- Choose Item > Reshape Polygon to display polygon handles around the box corners.
- Delete all but one handle from each corner you want to be square. To delete a handle, hold down the Command key and move the arrow pointer over the handle. Click and release the mouse button when the arrow pointer changes to the Handle Deletion pointer.
- To make a square corner, Click on the remaining handle and drag it to the corner created by the intersecting guides.
- If you want to place a frame on the box, choose Item > Frame to display the Frame Specifications dialog box. Select a Width, Color, Shade, and Style, then Click OK.
More information:
- Frames on rounded corners created with a Corner Radius are smoother than frames on rounded corners created with polygon segments. You may find that the polygon segments forming the corners are noticeable if you print the Frame to an imagesetter.
- None of the bitmapped frames (those beyond the first seven straight line frames) can be applied to a rounded-corner box or to a polygon box.
- To scale or resize a custom box, make sure Reshape Polygon (Item menu) is unchecked.
- After creating a custom box shape, you may want to save it in a library for future use.
- The techniques described in this tech-note can be applied to any box shape.
- A rounded-corner text or picture box will become square cornered when anchored in text.