SOLIDWORKS Tips and Tricks
Here are 30 tips and tricks we shared at our Product Launch Conference - the DNA of the Future.
1.Box select:
When box selecting, dragging from left to right the box is blue, in this case only entities that are completely inside the box will be selected. When dragging from right to left, the box is green, in this case any entity the box touches will be selected.
2.Pressing “S”:
When you press “S”, a shortcut bar will appear that allows you to search for certain commands. These commands can also be added to the shortcut bar by pressing the “+” sign next to the command for future use.
3.Mouse gestures:
Mouse gestures are enabled by holding your right mouse button and moving your cursor in a circular motion over the feature options. These sections can be customized to the users liking. There are also different sections for sketching, features, assemblies, and drawings.
4.Selecting an entity:
When selecting and entity such as an edge, some of the dimension properties will be displayed within the status bar at the bottom of the right-hand side of the SOLIDWORKS window.
5.Ctrl + drag:
When holding ctrl, a feature can be dragged from the feature manager design tree to copy it onto your part. The same operation can be used to copy planes to a new location.
6.Trim tool redo:
When accidentally cutting away a line using the sketch trim tool, the previous cut can be undone by simply dragging back over the small red block created when cutting the entity.
7.Ignore trimming of construction geometry:
This is an option within the sketch trim tool which will allow the trim tool to ignore any construction geometry when trimming entities.
8.Make construction geometry:
This is also an option within the sketch trim tool which, instead of removing entities, changes them to construction geometry. This helps the user keep the sketch fully defined when trimming way sketch entities.
9.Fully define sketch option:
This is accessed by right clicking in the graphics area while busy editing a sketch and selecting the “Fully define: sketch option. This will assist the user to create the necessary relations or dimensions needed to fully define a sketch.
10.Rectangle to square:
When creating a rectangle using the rectangle command in SOLIDWORKS, right clicking inside the rectangle, and adding the equal relation will ensure that the rectangle is a square.
11.Show who created a feature:
To see who created a certain feature in a part, right-click on the feature and select feature properties from the menu. In these properties, one can see who created the feature.
12.Loft section:
To create a loft section right-click on the loft feature and select “loft section”. This will allow you to select a predefined plane or create a new plane, which will then create a sketch of the outline of the loft at that specific location. This sketch can then be modified as needed and the loft will be adjusted accordingly.
13.Convert fillet to chamfer:
When a fillet is created, it is possible to convert the fillet to a chamfer by right clicking on the fillet feature on the part and selecting the option “Convert fillet to chamfer”. This will create a chamfer using the same dimension as the fillet.
14.Creating a template with standard views:
To create a template with the default standard views, the user simply creates a drawing of any part with the desired standard views inserted and save the document as a template. This will remove the current views but will keep the references to the views on the template to allow the user to thereafter create drawings with the standard views already inserted.
15.Ctrl to break alignment:
When projecting a view within SOLIDWORKS drawing environment, the view is aligned to the main view. This alignment can be broken by holding down the ctrl button and placing the view. Note the view must be placed before releasing ctrl.
16.Auto arrange dimensions:
When selecting multiple dimensions, a little pop up appears. When selecting the pop up, there is an option “Auto arrange dimensions” that will auto space out dimensions to more suitable positions. If some of the dimensions are still not in the correct location, they can be moved to a more desired location.
17.Ctrl + A to select all:
When selecting an entity/dimension, ctrl + A can be used to select all. This will select all the similar entities or select all the dimensions.
18.Standard notes:
Standard notes can be created as an annotation library within the design library. These notes can then be added to each other to make it look as neat as possible. The numbering can also update as the user adds more notes to the list. These notes can simply be dragged in from the design library. The note can be saved to the annotation’s library by right-clicking on the note and selecting the save option and dragged in on future parts.
19.Smart notes:
Smart notes can be created that will allow the note to automatically populate the desired information within the note. This is done by creating a normal note and linking the note to a custom property.
20.Ctrl to show quick mate toolbar:
When using ctrl to multi select entities to mate and the models is moved causing the quick mate toolbar to disappear, the toolbar can be brought back by simply hovering the cursor where the last face was selected and pressing ctrl on the keyboard. This will bring back the quick mate toolbar and allow the user to continue as normal.
21.Assembly part configuration change:
When the user accidentally inserted the wrong configuration of a part into an assembly, this can be fixed by simply selecting the component and from the configuration drop down menu, select the correct configuration.
22.Drag part in from windows file explorer:
Parts can be dragged into an assembly directly from the file explorer. If the part dragged from file explorer has multiple configurations, a configurations block will appear in SOLIDWORKS allowing the user to easily select the desired configuration.
23.Advanced select:
With no active selections, right-click and use the drop down next to select. This will give the user more advanced selecting features such as selecting identical components and selecting all hidden components.
24.Make subassembly flexible:
When adding a subassembly into a top-level assembly, the assembly is fixed to aid in performance as SOLIDWORKS will not take the mates into account. This can be changed by right clicking on the subassembly and selecting the option “Make subassembly flexible”. This will allow the subassembly to move as normal within the top-level assembly.
25.Smart Mates:
Pressing alt and dragging a face or edge of a component will allow the user to add mates by just dragging the part into the desired location.
26.Ctrl + drag in assembly:
This will copy the part but also add smart mates to a component to quickly copy a part within an assembly.
27.Tab for alignment change:
When using the ctrl + drag method within an assembly, tab can be used to flip the alignment within the assembly to have the correct alignment for the part.
28.Ctrl + shift + Q:
SOLIDWORKS has a few ways to rebuild a part. The most used is ctrl + Q which will rebuild all the features within an active configuration. This generally works well for a part with a single configuration but for parts with multiple configurations, ctrl + shift + Q can be used. This will rebuild all features in all configurations, including the active and non-active configurations.
29.Select edge and sketch:
When selecting an edge and selecting the sketch option, a plane will automatically be created that is perpendicular to the edge at the end nearest to where the user selected the edge.
30.Q to show planes:
A quick way to show planes is by pressing Q. This will show all planes. The planes can then be used for features. To hide the planes again, simply click away from all planes.