Keyboard Shortcuts
Use a single letter to fire the tool you can see on the toolbar right now. Press S to start a sketch, E to extrude, F to fillet. There are no chords and no modifiers to learn, nothing like Shift+Ctrl+K, because the editor never shows two tools that want the same letter at the same time.
So C is Circle while you are drawing and Coincident once two points are selected. Nothing is ambiguous, because those two are never on screen together.
The three families
Tools live in three groups that can never be co-visible, and letters are reused freely across them:
| Family | When it is on screen | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Outside a sketch | Extrude, Fillet, Union, Transform |
| Sketch drawing | Inside a sketch, nothing selected | Line, Circle, Rectangle, Text |
| Sketch editing | Inside a sketch, something selected | Constraints, dimensions, patterns |
Within a family every letter is unique, so a shortcut never quietly starts doing two things.
Model tools
| Key | Tool |
|---|---|
| S | Create sketch (on a selected face or reference plane: sketch on that one) |
| E | Extrude |
| C | Cut |
| Q | Push face |
| R | Revolve |
| W | Sweep |
| I | Helical sweep |
| T | Thread |
| L | Loft |
| F | Fillet |
| H | Chamfer |
| O | Shell |
| U | Union |
| B | Subtract |
| N | Intersect |
| M | Transform |
| K | Mirror body |
| P | Reference plane, at a distance |
| X | Reference axis, through 2 points |
| D | Reference point, at a face centre |
| V | Show / hide: the selected bodies, or a selected reference |
Reference geometry comes in fourteen variants — five planes, four axes, five points — and only the first of each family carries the letter. The rest are one caret away on the same button.
Drawing in a sketch
| Key | Tool |
|---|---|
| L | Line |
| O | Point |
| C | Circle |
| A | Arc (3 points) |
| R | Rectangle |
| G | Polygon |
| E | Ellipse |
| S | Slot |
| T | Text |
| I | Insert SVG |
| P | Project |
Tool variants have no letter of their own. Open the caret on the same button to reach the other two circles, the second arc, or the rectangle from its centre.
Constraining a sketch
| Key | Constraint or dimension |
|---|---|
| C | Coincident (point to point, to a line, or to a curve) |
| Z | Horizontal / vertical (lines, or a pair of points) |
| P | Parallel |
| V | Perpendicular |
| T | Tangent |
| O | Concentric |
| E | Equal (same length, same radius, or both) |
| S | Symmetric |
| M | Midpoint |
| F | Fix point |
| B | Add midpoint |
| J | Add intersection |
| D | Distance / dimension / diameter, whichever your selection allows |
| R | Radius |
| A | Angle |
| X | Toggle construction |
| W | Toggle exported (smart-object base sketch only) |
D is the one letter that is shared. Distance, length and diameter are the same intent, "put a number on this", and your selection decides which one you get.
The modifier keys
These are the only combinations, and they behave the way they do everywhere else:
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl / ⌘ + S | Save |
| Ctrl / ⌘ + O | Open the file manager in a new tab |
| Ctrl / ⌘ + Z | Undo |
| Ctrl / ⌘ + Shift + Z | Redo (Ctrl + Y also works on Windows and Linux) |
| Shift or Ctrl + click | Add to the selection |
| Alt + click | Reach geometry behind a solid |
| Delete / Backspace | Delete the selection, inside a sketch and in the file manager (there Backspace needs Ctrl/⌘, and inside the trash the same key restores instead). It does not delete a body from the viewport. Deleting a body is the timeline's job |
| Esc | Cancel what you are drawing. With nothing in progress it puts the plain Select tool back, filter and all. With a picker running or a step open it does more, and the two sections below say what |
Undo works in the units you built in, not in keystrokes. One press takes back the whole operation, the rectangle along with its constraints and the points it dropped, rather than peeling it apart.
While a picker is waiting
A tool that asks you to point at something takes over the viewport until you answer it, and the hint at the bottom of the screen shows the three keys that end the session.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ↵ | Confirm: keep the picks and leave the session |
| Esc | Cancel: put back whatever the field held before you started picking |
| C | Clear all: empty the picks and stay in the session |
While a picker is running the letter belongs to the picker, so C empties the list rather than firing Circle, Cut or Coincident. The toolbar is inert during a pick, so visibility — the thing that normally keeps a reused letter unambiguous — cannot arbitrate, and the picker wins.
Picking itself asks for no modifier. A plain click adds an element to a field that takes several, and a second plain click on the same element takes it back off.
Confirming and cancelling a step
With a step's panel open, anywhere outside a sketch, two more keys are live.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ↵ | Confirm: close the step and keep the edits, exactly what the footer's Ok does. One undo entry |
| Esc | Cancel: a step you have just added is removed, and a step that already existed goes back to what it was when you opened it, with no undo entry of its own |
Cancelling an existing step leaves no trace, so the next undo reaches the action before the edit rather than the edit itself. The key belongs first to a field you are typing in, then to an open picker, and only then to the step.
What a shortcut will not do
- Letters never fire while you are typing. Any field, any text box: the letter goes into the field.
- A letter only fires a tool that is visible. If the toolbar does not show it for your current selection, the key does nothing. That is the same answer as "why is the button not there", covered in A Tour of the Editor.
- Esc does not leave a sketch. Finish sketch does. Selecting and Navigating has the full behaviour.
See also
- A Tour of the Editor: why a letter only fires when its tool is visible
- Selecting and Navigating: the modifiers, in context