Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Rounded Corners on Cells.

Rounded Corners on Cells

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 25, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016


8

Kartik wonders how he can get rounded borders on cells in Excel. The short answer is that you cannot; Excel allows you to place square-cornered borders, but not rounded-corner borders.

The only possible workaround is to create a drawing object that is a rectangle with rounded corners. If you make the drawing object the same size as your cells and format it so it has no fill color, you could copy the object to as many cells as you want to have the border. Remember, however, that this is just a workaround—if you change the size of the cell in which one of these drawing objects is located, the "border" won't resize with the cell; it will remain small.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12324) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Rounded Corners on Cells.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is three less than 3?

2020-09-25 08:11:03

Billy Thomas

Pressing the Alt key while drawing the "rectangle rounded corners" shape will snap to the grid. When you resize a cell the rectangle rounded corners will resize with the cell. Once the rectangle rounded corners has been drawn and copied as desired, go to the View Tab on the ribbon and unselect Gridlines.


2020-09-25 03:09:10

Martyn Crawford

I've just tried this and it works a treat, but I found the resizing drawback Allen mentions need not be a problem. When I set the Shape properties to move and size with cells, the border resizes to match the cell size. The only difficulty is editing the cell contents with the transparent shape over it, but that is easy enough to work around.


2016-11-01 19:08:21

Erik

Don, I see what you mean now.

I was envisioning that the entire sheet - every single cell - would be outlined with rounded corners. Were this the case, a camera picture wouldn't work because it doesn't variably expand and contract.

But if you use the camera photo to highlight specific cells, I agree that it is a great tool.

Sorry for my misunderstanding. - Erik


2016-10-31 09:57:46

Jennifer Thomas

Thanks, Don - I hadn't used the Camera before but once I added it to my toolbar and started playing around with this, I find it's easy to use and perfectly stable.

I also like your idea of using it for a dashboard element -- previously I had used buttons to invoke macros that incorporated named ranges, etc., but this is so much easier!


2016-10-30 19:42:46

Don

Erik
I have not seen any of the limitations of which you speak. (Excel 2010)

The Camera can take a picture of a single cell or a large surrounding group of cells. The resulting picture can be placed anywhere such as on a different worksheet. The picture can be cropped as well as using any effect such as glow, bevel, shadow, etc. Columns in the picture can be multiple widths and rows can have different heights. If the source area of the picture has its columns or rows resized the picture expands or contracts to match.

In the original case we can assume that the rounded corners are needed for emphasis, clarity, or "good looks". Lets say the cell in question is a column total. That total value can be placed elsewhere on the sheet or on another sheet. Take a picture of it and locate the fancy framed picture under the column being totaled. If the column is widened the picture of the total will expand to match.

An extremely fancy worksheet can be developed by eliminating the grid lines and adding several pictures of the real data. (Sort of a simplistic dash-board)


2016-10-29 11:42:58

Erik

Don, that is a great suggestion as long as all your cells are the same size. But if some columns are wider/narrower than others, and/or some rows are taller/shorter than others, this will not work. It also won't work if only a subset of rows and/or columns are changed.


2016-10-29 09:56:48

Don

One of the most neglected capabilities in Excel is the easy to use camera. The camera takes a picture of an area of cell(s). The camera's picture is like any image in that it may be placed anywhere, may have any picture frame, may be resized, may be oriented any way, and best of all the picture is automatically updated to match the changes in the source cells of the picture. Rounded corners? Yes, and much more.


2016-10-29 08:19:52

Robert

If you change the properties of the object "border" to resize with the cells size, then when somebody changes the cells size, the "border" will adjust itself to the same size of the cells.


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