Using keyboard shortcuts can save you a significant amount of time during modeling. It is a way to make the modeling process more natural and artistic, as opposed to technical and programmatic. When you learn keyboard shortcuts and commit them to memory, your hands will “remember” what key to press instinctively.

The really cool thing about Sketchup, is that it allows you to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts so you can create an optimal interface to fit the way you use Sketchup.

Why learn Shortcuts?

Think about when you type on the keyboard. You know what letters you need to press, but you don’t have to think about where the letters are. You just know where they are and your hands start typing away. It’s the same muscle memory that makes learning the keyboard shortcuts so beneficial. Instead of using the mouse to select a tool from the drop down menu or the toolbar, you use your non-mouse hand to select it on the keyboard. This keeps the mouse in the modeling screen where all the action happens.

Watch the video below to learn how I use two custom shortcuts to speed up my navigation in Sketchup.

Custom Shortcuts





Sketchup comes with many preset keyboard shortcuts, but gives you the ability to change them or add your own. Now I don’t suggest changing the defaults, but I have found that I’ve felt the need to add a couple additional keyboard shortcuts to my configuration.

Create your own shortcuts by going to Window-Preferences-Shortcuts. Select any of the actions from the scroll menu, and assign a keyboard shortcut to active/toggle that action. If you select a shortcut that is already in use by another action, you will receive an error.

There are a lot of times when I’m working on a component inside of my model, and there are other parts of the model that are in my way. If you go to View-Component Edit-Hide rest of Model, this feature will hide the rest of the model when you are editing a component. This happens enough that it’s a pain to go and select this feature from the drop down menu. So I created a custom keyboard shortcut to activate it.

x = Hide the rest of the model during component edit

The other shortcut I’ve added is for hiding components. This comes in handy when you want to select a bunch of things and hide them while trying to orbit around your model. It saves you two clicks for each entity you hide. Otherwise, you would have to right-click, then left-click on “Hide”. This way, you just select the entity and press N to hide it. The time you save adds up.

n = Hide selected entities

Take some time to think about what tools you use most often and create a shortcut to activate it. You’ll be surprised at the amount of time it saves you. If you’d like to learn how to use keyboard shortcuts, sign up for my mailing list to get my free keyboard shortcut reference guide.