From the book
Creating a rounded rectangle
Creating a rounded rectangle
Next, you’ll create a rectangle with rounded corners for another part of the illustration. You’ll also round the corners of one of the existing rectangles. This involves working with Live Corners.
- Select the Zoom tool (
) in the Tools panel, and click once, on the smaller rectangle you created. - Click and hold down the mouse button on the Rectangle tool (
), and select the Rounded Rectangle tool (
) in the Tools panel. - Position the pointer below the smaller rectangle. Click and drag down and to the right until the rectangle has an approximate width of 0.45 inches and a height of 0.2 inches, but do not release the mouse button yet. With the mouse button still held down, press the Down Arrow key a few times to see the corner radius become less rounded (the R value in the tool tip). Press the Up Arrow key to see the corner become more rounded. Don’t worry about the R (radius) value in the tool tip since we can edit it later, and release the mouse button.
- With the new rectangle still selected, click the Fill color in the Control panel to open the Swatches panel. Choose the yellow swatch with the tool tip that shows “C=20 M=0 Y=100 K=0.” Press the Escape key to hide the Swatches panel.
- With the rounded rectangle selected, change the upper-left corner radius to 0.05 in by typing the value into the field in the Transform panel. Click in another field, or press the Tab key to see the other corners change as well. The Link Corner Radius Value button (
) is on by default. - Select the Selection tool (
) in the Tools panel. Drag the rounded rectangle up so that it’s centered horizontally with the rectangle above it and so that its top edge snaps to the bottom of that same rectangle, as shown in the figure. When the word “intersect” and the green line(s) appear (Smart Guides), release the mouse button. - With the rounded rectangle selected, click and drag the right, middle bounding point to the right. As you drag, press the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key. This allows you to resize from the center of the shape. Drag until the width is approximately 0.5 in, release the mouse button, and then release the modifier key.
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By default, the corners are rounded, but you will see shortly that you can choose from three corner types.
Next, you’ll use Smart Guides to help you align the rounded rectangle to the smaller rectangle.
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