In SolidWorks 2025, are there shortcut keys, or a way to program a shortcut keys, to incrementally increase and decrease the font size of, for example, an annotation on a drawing?
Thanks.
there is not a key board short cut
what you can do is go thru the document properties if you are looking to modify specific note sized for views or other items and specify there the differences that you would like to see.
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Yeah, it’s a shame that there’s no keyboard shortcut for doing it on an as-needed basis. The standard Windows CTRL + / CTRL -, for example.
when i have special notes I save them to the design library so I don’t have to retype or modify them all the time.
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I recently started doing the same thing.
Still, there are times, often enough, when I need to spot-tweak font sizes.
I save mine as Styles. I started doing that years ago when I was having problems with notes in the design library (if I remember correctly I wasn’t able to insert the same note more than once in a single drawing). It has worked very well. One bonus is that I can save different notes in each template.
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This can be done with a fairly simple macro. I’ll try to post something later today.
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It’s actually simple enough that it might be possible to get a decent macro from AI.
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Simple macro below. You can assign your desired hot keys to the IncreaseFont and DecreaseFont functions. Works for everything except Datums, because their size can only be set on a global basis, not per annotation. You can use meters or points as the value to increase/decrease by. The default is to use 1/16", but it is easily changeable. See the two Const values near the top of the macro.
I’ve seen some unpredicatble behavior when selecting a dimension and any other annotation type. Sometimes, the hot keys do not register. Something is blocking them, perhaps the dimension palette, but it doesn’t happen every time.
Option Explicit
Enum Direction
Larger = 1
Smaller = -1
End Enum
Dim swApp As SldWorks.SldWorks
Const metersToIncrement = 0.0625 * 25.4 / 1000# '1/16" Set to zero if you want to use points
Const pointToIncrement = 1
Public Sub IncreaseFont()
adjustFontSize Larger
End Sub
Public Sub decreaseFont()
adjustFontSize Smaller
End Sub
Private Sub adjustFontSize(dir As Direction)
Dim fontSizePts As Integer
Dim fontSizeMeters As Double
Set swApp = Application.SldWorks
Dim mDoc As ModelDoc2
Dim selMgr As SelectionMgr
Set mDoc = swApp.ActiveDoc
Set selMgr = mDoc.SelectionManager
Dim selCount As Long
selCount = selMgr.GetSelectedObjectCount2(-1)
Dim i As Integer
Dim selType As Long
Dim nextAnn As Annotation
Dim nextFormat As TextFormat
Dim nextAnnType As Variant
For i = 1 To selCount
selType = selMgr.GetSelectedObjectType3(1, -1)
Select Case selType
Case _
swSelectType_e.swSelDIMENSIONS, _
swSelectType_e.swSelGTOLS, _
swSelectType_e.swSelNOTES, _
swSelectType_e.swSelSFSYMBOLS, _
swSelectType_e.swSelWELDS
Set nextAnn = selMgr.GetSelectedObject6(i, -1).GetAnnotation
If Not nextAnn Is Nothing Then
Set nextFormat = nextAnn.GetTextFormat(0)
If Not nextFormat Is Nothing Then
If metersToIncrement = 0# Then
fontSizePts = nextFormat.CharHeightInPts
fontSizePts = fontSizePts + (pointToIncrement * dir)
If fontSizePts >= 1 Then
nextFormat.CharHeightInPts = fontSizePts
End If
Else
fontSizeMeters = nextFormat.CharHeight
fontSizeMeters = fontSizeMeters + (metersToIncrement * dir)
If fontSizeMeters >= 0 Then
nextFormat.CharHeight = fontSizeMeters
End If
End If
nextAnn.SetTextFormat 0, False, nextFormat
End If
End If
End Select
Next
mDoc.GraphicsRedraw2
End Sub
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Thank you, Jim!
Much appreciated.
I will give this a try tonight.
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Dimension palette is a very likely culprit. After selecting a dimension, it will block all hotkeys until you move your mouse far enough away that the popup thing disappears. Super annoying. The regular shortcut bar that pops up does not block hotkeys, but the dim palette expansion popup does.
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It appears that the design library note insertion bug has been corrected.
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I wouldn’t be surprised. It was at least 15 years ago when I had the trouble with it. I’m perfectly happy with using Styles though.
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