How to Round Corners in Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn a variety of ways to round corners in illustrator, to selectively control which corners you round, and how to access the variety of corner style options.

Table of Contents

Round Corners with the Live Corner Widget

Since Illustrator introduced the Live Corner Widget several versions back rounding corners in illustrator have been a breeze. The live corner widget appears when you marque select (draw a box around) an object or part of an object with the Direct Selection Tool. It doesn’t matter if you created the object using Illustrator’s shape tools or outlined text or drew something with the pencil or pen. If it has a corner it will have a live corner widget and dragging the widget towards the center of the object will allow you to round the corners.

Round all Corners

The default when using the live corner widget is to round all the corners in an object. Click and drag inward on any of the live corner widgets to round all the corners of a shape. The further you drag the rounder the corners will become. You can lessen the rounding by dragging back towards the edge of the object.

various shapes with rounded corners — Gallery of shapes with all corners rounded

Hitting max roundness: You can only round a corner so far. For instance, a square with the corners with all corners at max roundness becomes a circle. Illustrator will show you that the corners are at max by briefly outlining the shape in red.

Round Only Selected Corners

If we only want to round selected corners we can do that by clicking the live corner widget to select it. You will know the corner widget is selected because the widget will display a thicker border. To now round that corner simply drag the selected widget inwards.

Want more than one corner rounded, no problem, either click the first corner and shift-click the second and subsequent corners or marquee select only the corner anchor points that want you want to round.

gallery of shapes with selected corners rounded — Gallery of shapes with only selected corners rounded

Types of Rounded Corner

Rounded: The default rounded corner

Inverted Rounded: The corner is rounded inwards

Chamfer: Creates a straight line diagonally across the corner

3 types of rounded corners in illustrator — Illustrator’s 3 types of corners: Rounded, Inverted Round & Chamfer

Changing the Corner Type

You can change the type of corner using either the live corner widget or corner options on the transform panel. Just like changing the corner radius you can all the corners at once or just selected corners.

Change All Corners

Method 1: Using the Live Corner Widget

Alt Click (Windows) | Option Click (Mac) the Live Corner Widget to cycle through the 3 corner types

Change Selected Corners

Double-click the Live Corner Widget this will bring up the Shape properties panel (You can also open the shape panel by clicking on the underlined word “Shape” on your Control Bar).

Scaling Rounded Corners

You can choose whether or not the corners of your object scales if you scale the object. If you want your corners to scale with the object make sure that the Scale Corners option is checked in the Tranform panel or Shape Panels.

Rounded Corner FAQ

Round corner handle (live corner widget) not showing?

Select the corner anchor point or make a marquee selection of the whole object with the Direct Selection Tool
If that doesn’t work try scaling the object, sometimes Illustrator doesn’t show the live corner widgets when the object is too small.
Finally, make sure that the point you are trying to round is actually a corner point not a smooth point. A smooth point will display direction handles when selected with the Direct Selection Tool and the Corner Point doesn’t.