Every day it seems like we have to do more and more in less time. Well, the only way to do that is to get better and quicker with the tools you have. In this week’s Video Tech Tip, we show you how to use two great keyboard shortcuts to help you make drawings in SOLIDWORKS quicker than ever before.

Have you ever wished that SOLIDWORKS would turn off the auto snapping/alignment? Maybe you’re trying to get the placement just right, but the auto snapping makes it almost impossible to do it. Let’s look at two ways we can temporarily turn off the auto snapping/alignment in SOLIDWORKS Drawings.

In a scenario where you want to move the dimension of a drawing slightly, you should use the “ALT” key. To do so, drag a dimension while holding down the “ALT” key on your keyboard. This will temporarily prevent any snapping/alignment from occurring automatically.

When you want to create projected/section views, you should use the “CTRL” key. This will temporarily allow the child view to be placed outside of the alignment generated in the tool. So, to do this, use the project/section view as you usually would, then just before you place down the new view, hold down the “CTRL” key.

These great keyboard shortcuts are so useful we teach them in the first day of SOLIDWORKS Essentials because we know they could be huge timesavers for creating a drawing. To see these in action, be sure to check out the video tech tip where our Elite Application Engineer Chang Lee, walks you through the process step by step.

Want to learn more tips and tricks with SOLIDWORKS? Browse our SOLIDWORKS training classes.