Swing headerRender

define your own  headerRender

// Create a multiline renderer, and set it for each column in
// the table.

MultiLineHeaderRenderer headerRenderer = new MultiLineHeaderRenderer();
TableColumnModel columnModel = table.getColumnModel();
for( Enumeration e = columnModel.getColumns(); e.hasMoreElements(); ) {
    TableColumn column = ( TableColumn )e.nextElement();
    column.setHeaderRenderer( headerRenderer );
}

/**
* An example of a multiline table header.
* To be used effectively, known header value types
* would need to be specified in an interface that
* could be tested for here. This would allow useful
* data to be queried for the additional rows in the header.
* This could be done by a specialized table model that
* returns column headers with breaks in the returned
* String from the getColumnName method that could be
* interpreted here.
**/

class MultiLineHeaderRenderer extends JTextArea
    implements TableCellRenderer, Serializable {

    /**
     * MultiLineHeaderRenderer, default Constructor.
     * Set the number of rows to two. For a production
     * header renderer, the number of rows would probably
     * be determined dynamically depending on the header value.
     **/

    public MultiLineHeaderRenderer() {
       super( 2, 20 );
       setOpaque( true );
    }

    /**
     * Configure in the standard table header colors and border.
     * The multiline string is a bit contrived here. Would need
     * to get a real multiline header from the table model, or
     * values of known types, i.e. interfaces.
     **/



    public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(JTable table,
                         Object value, boolean isSelected,
                         boolean hasFocus, int row, int column) {                       
        if (table != null) {
            JTableHeader header = table.getTableHeader();
            if (header != null) {
                setForeground(header.getForeground());
                setBackground(header.getBackground());
                setFont(header.getFont());
            }
        }

        setText( (value == null) ? "Column " + column : "Column " + column + "/ n" + value.toString() );
        setBorder( UIManager.getBorder("TableHeader.cellBorder") );
        return this;
    }
}