Top 10 SOLIDWORKS Keyboard Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Workflow

This video is all about making your time in SOLIDWORKS more efficient by using some personal favorite keyboard shortcuts. We'll go through a list of shortcuts that can help you with everything from rotating your model to saving your work.

Key Takeaways

• View and Rotation: Spacebar for view orientation, arrow keys for precise rotation, and F to zoom to fit.
• Component Visibility: Tab and Shift+Tab to hide and show components.
• Selection Tools: F5 to toggle selection filters, and V, E, X for vertices, edges, and faces.
• Model Management: Ctrl+Q for a forced rebuild, and Ctrl+S to save.
• Customization: The S key for the customizable Shortcut toolbar and creating your own shortcuts.

Model Rotation and Visualization

Let's kick things off with how you can move and see your models better. First up is the Spacebar. Pressing it brings up the View Orientation dialog. From here, you can pick any standard view like front, top, or right, or choose an axonometric projection. It's also where you can set up custom views. If you're more of a visual person, you can even click on a facet in the View Selector to see your model from that angle.

Sometimes, you need a bit more control when rotating. That's where the Arrow Keys come in handy. They let you rotate your model precisely in the X, Y, and Z directions by a specific angle, which you can set in the Options. Want to rotate 90 degrees? Just hold Shift with an arrow key.

My personal favorite, and probably one of the most used, is the F key. Ever zoom in super close to check something out, only to have to zoom all the way back out? The F key does that for you instantly – it zooms to fit your entire model on the screen. It's also great for finding stray sketch lines that have wandered off.

Managing Components and Selections

When you're working with assemblies, hiding components to see what's inside is common. Instead of clicking and selecting 'Hide', you can just hover over a component and press the Tab key. To bring a hidden component back, hover over where it was and press Shift+Tab. This saves you from digging through the FeatureManager.

Selection filters can also speed things up. You can toggle the Selection Filters toolbar by pressing F5, but I mostly use V, E, and X to quickly switch between selecting vertices, edges, and faces. This is super helpful when you need to pick small things or when geometry is packed closely together. If you ever see a little funnel icon on your mouse and don't know why, you probably hit one of these keys by accident.

Rebuilding and Quick Access

Forcing a rebuild of your model can be important, especially when troubleshooting. Ctrl+Q does a Forced Rebuild. Unlike a regular rebuild, this goes through and rebuilds every single feature in the FeatureManager, not just the ones that look like they need it. This can help find issues like circular references or problems with equations. It might take a bit longer, but it's worth it for troubleshooting.

The S key is a game-changer. It brings up the Shortcut toolbar, a customizable menu that pops up right near your mouse. What's in it changes depending on what you're doing. Plus, at the bottom, there's a command search. So, you can hit 'S' and start typing to find any command you need.

Undoing, Saving, and Custom Shortcuts

We all make mistakes, and that's what Ctrl+Z is for – Undo. SOLIDWORKS keeps a pretty long list of your actions, which you can see by clicking the dropdown on the Undo button. The Redo command is Ctrl+Y, and it works the same way.

And the most important one, Ctrl+S – Save. Seriously, use this more often. Even though SOLIDWORKS has auto-save, taking a second to hit Ctrl+S gives you peace of mind that your work is safe.

Finally, my absolute favorite shortcuts are the ones I create myself. For me, these are M, P, A, T, and Shift+S. I've set 'M' to activate the Measure tool. The others are for hiding and showing things: 'P' for planes, 'A' for axes, 'T' for temporary axes, and 'Shift+S' for sketches. I use Shift+S because S is already taken by the Shortcut toolbar, and Ctrl+S is for saving.

If you want to see a full list of all keyboard shortcuts, both default and custom, go to Customize, then the Keyboard tab. You can search and even print out a reference guide.