What are your most impressive tricks of Solidworks

SOLIDWORKS SW General
41

Wish I’d have the time to copy every page in the original forum tricks and tips, down the drain…

42

Especially on parts that have surfaces that are used to create things and are then no longer needed, I like to use delete body to get rid of the extra bodies that I don’t need anymore. I try to use the command right after I no longer need that body. For example, I may create a surface to make some kind of split or surface cut. Right after I use it, I will use delete body so I don’t have that body accidently getting shown or selected in the future.

43

Interesting. I always saw Delete Body as a do-nothing command that only removes the body from the tree. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. I rename bodies that I’m working with. and select stuff from the bodies folders. I usually save Delete Body until the very end. Translations send out extra bodies, and that can cause a lot of trouble.

44

I’ll expand on this one.
CTRL+click multiple assembly components which are already mated together. Then, CTRL+drag to copy these components with mates. They keep their mates to each other, and maybe to primary reference planes (like parallel to Top Plane), but not any mates to other components. Then, you can mate this new pile into your big pile where you want it.

45

Check this out: https://help.solidworks.com/2021/english/SolidWorks/sldworks/c_Cross_Selection.htm?id=8cb8d919b9094b708087427941bba562#Pg0

Once you understand it, you’re like WOW!!

46

This was old autocad functionality. It took SW a long time to add it to the software.

47

What, you mean SW went and did some different than the rest of the pc world and assigned tab and Shift tab to something other than cycling through “tabs”, windows or applications on the taskbar?

48

I was reminded today of “advanced delete”.

I use this when SolidWorks wants to delete dependent features (especially some of which aren’t truly dependent).

49

Hello CarrieIves,

I can’t believe that in 12 years I’ve never clicked on that button, though I have learned to pay attention to the options at the lower left corner. I’ll try to remember to check it out.

50

Ditto, with less years. I don’t often work with rich features, but I’m sure that I’ll come across an opportunity to try that one out. Neat! Thanks Carrie.

51

It is an innovative company. It had to do things differently.
Like not all UI control behave the same way.
Next innovation, new keyboard layout.

52

Press “windows” key + V to view your clipboard. You can also pin items to your clipboard by clicking on the 3 dots on the item in the clipboard and clicking “Pin”.
I use this all the time when I am copying and pasting multiple items.

53

Did you know about the “New Window” functionality? See the attached GIF video.

FYI, this is usable for so much more than just Assembly mating…

54

When using mirror sketch entities, if you preselect the mirroring entity along with the to-be-mirrored bits, the mirror happens without the mirror PM opening (assuming SW can figure out the correct mirror-by entity from the selection).

Oddly, this doesn’t work in mirror component (possibly because of the subsequent mirror choices), but if you do preselect all, the mirror PM does open with the mirror-by box filled in and with the to-be-mirrored bits in their list.

Kevin

55

I too run with this on…love it. I use the keyboard to do a Ctrl+C and then go to paste with a Ctrl+V and hit Ctrl+C again with nothing selected and would lose the previous clip.
Another aspect is that you can “collect” several copies at a time and then paste each without having to do multiple copy/switch/paste.

I believe this is off by default though.
To turn on, go to (Windows) Settings>System>Clipboard.

Kevin

56

To speed it up even more I have it as a gesture on my mouse, as you can see earlier in this thread.

57

I’m not sure I want to sacrifice real-estate on my 32" curved-screen monitor… grumph

58

Here’s a GIF of a really fast way to add intersection relations!

59
  1. The use of a Skeleton Sketch part - Eliminates Circular Rebuilds, Better Models, Parametric Changes and a lot of other plus’s
  2. Multiple Sheet Drawing - If you have a 100 different/unique parts, it’s nice to open one file instead of a 100…
  3. Custom Property Tab Builder - To track custom properties in parts and assemblies individually
  4. Macros - get all the macros you can and use them in your workflow
  5. Task Scheduler
  6. #Task http://www.centralinnovation.com.au/
  7. Mouse Gestures
  8. S Key
  9. Layers (Colored)
  10. Templates
  11. Isolate
  12. Use Colored Sketches (thanks to Alin Vargatu )
    Plus a lot more
60

What is #Task? I’ve heard of it but never seen it.