Customizing your productivity tools is the first step in becoming as efficient as possible when designing in SOLIDWORKS. This video covers the steps to take that will place your most frequently used tools close by so you can spend less time looking for the right one and more time designing. Let’s take a look at how to customization can give you access with just one click.

Shortcut Bar

The first productivity tool to customize is the Shortcut Bar, which appears wherever your cursor is located in the graphic area. There are four different shortcut toolbar menus based on the major functions of SOLIDWORKS. They are Parts, Sketches, Drawings and Assemblies.

To add commands to the toolbar, select the icon and drag and drop onto the toolbar. Keep in mind that you are not limited to the amount of commands that you want to add. Once customized, to activate the toolbar window press the “S” key on your keyboard and the toolbar will appear to the right of the cursor. This easy shortcut dramatically reduces mouse travel saving you a lot time.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The second productivity tool is Keyboard shortcuts. Keys are already mapped by default in SOLIDWORKS, but you can map any key to activate a command on the keyboard. 

Keys can be customized to your preferences, by searching out the command you want to map and entering the key or key in the shorts column. 

Mouse Gestures

The third productivity tool you can customize is Mouse Gestures. By clicking and holding down the right mouse button and slightly moving it, a circular pallet will appear with up to twelve commands that you can activate. The commands are specific to four major functions; Parts, Sketches, Drawings and Assemblies.

To customize the Mouse Gesture wheel, click the Mouse Gestures tab in Customize and enter the command you wish to find in the search box. The command will be filtered out to match what you are typing. Here’s a great tip to expand the efficiency of your workflow: Typing short in the search box will bring up the shortcut bar. By adding the shortcut bar to one of your functions, you can expand the Mouse Gesture to even more than twelve functions. This further limits your mouse travel and increases your efficiency.

Not every interface is the same, and SOLIDWORKS makes it easy to customize your tools so you can spend less time searching for tools and more time designing cool stuff way faster!

Ready to learn more about SOLIDWORKS? Explore the different training options that we have to offer.