PowerPoint: Create Tables with Rounded Edges

by AJ Walther  

You've created a PowerPoint slide with a table showing quarterly service subscriptions for your three regional divisions.

You feel good about it, but when you show the higher ups they say, "That's great pal, but we want to take the company look in a more rounded direction. Go ahead and round out those corners." You of course say "No problem!" but when you get back into PowerPoint you realize that there is no option to round out the corners of a table.

There may not be a direct way to insert a table with rounded edges, but there are two easy ways to get the job done. I'll cover one method this week and the second next week.

The first option is to edit the pieces of the table.

1. In PowerPoint, select your table so the thick gray table border is visible.
     
2. On your keyboard, press [ctrl] [x] to cut the table to the clipboard.
3. From the Ribbon, choose Home > Paste > Paste Special to open the Paste Special dialog box.
     
4. From the Paste As: area, select Picture (Windows Metafile) and click the OK button.
    
5. With the pasted table selected, press [ctrl] [shift] [g] on your keyboard twice to convert the picture to a drawing object and ungroup it.
    
6. Click outside of the table to de-select all of its pieces.
7. On your keyboard, hold down the [shift] key as you click the shapes making up each of the four corners of the table (and then release the [shift] key).
     
8. From the ribbon, choose Drawing Tools Format > Insert Shapes > Edit Shape > Change Shape and select the Round Single Corner Rectangle. (Hovering over each shape will reveal the tooltip with the shape's name.)
     

The top right cell is now nice and rounded, but the other three cells' shapes are facing the wrong direction. You'll fix that next.

1. Click the top left cell of your table and, from the ribbon, choose Home > Drawing > Arrange > Rotate > Flip Horizontal.
     
2. Click the bottom left cell of your table and, from the ribbon, choose Home > Drawing > Arrange > Rotate > Flip Vertical and then, with the same cell still selected, choose Home > Drawing > Arrange > Rotate > Flip Horizontal.
3. Click the bottom right cell of your table, and from the ribbon, choose Home > Drawing > Arrange > Rotate > Flip Vertical.
     
4. Drag over all of the table's pieces, and then, on your keyboard, press [ctrl] [g] to group the table back into one piece.

The benefit of going this route is that you can easily edit the text and colors on the table. The downsides are: 1) this method is a bit time consuming and 2) if you want those corners rounded more, it will take even more time to ensure that all of the corners are rounded the same. I'll cover a second method to get the job done next week, so check back then!

UPDATE: Click here for a second method for creating tables with rounded edges in PowerPoint.