SketchUp is a very helpful tool which can easily generate 2d and 3D drawings. The software is very popular among architects, civil engineers, 3d makers, freelancers, game designers, production designers etc. due to its user-friendly interfaces.

SketchUp contains a wide range of shortcut keys which will provide great assistance to SketchUp professionals and experts to accelerate their drawing procedure. The shortcuts will help you to save huge amount time while creating a model.

SketchUp contains several preset keyboard shortcuts but one can make its own custom keyboard shortcuts. It will surely help users to make a best possible interface to fit the way you utilize SketchUp. The users will be able to make its own shortcuts and in order to do that the users have to visit Window-Preferences-Shortcuts. From the scroll menu, chooses a few actions and allocate a keyboard shortcut to active/toggle that action. Don’t choose a shortcut which exists with another action before now as it will show you an error message.

These shortcuts are assigned to the mouse and to the keyboard. Trimble has launched a reference card which contains the huge lists of shortcut keys. This reference card is related with SketchUp 8.

Given below some important keyboard shortcuts compatible with SketchUp 7 & 8. The shortcuts will facilitate users to generate models quickly and efficiently.

Shortcut Keys for SketchUp 8

Name of keystroke	Application	SketchUp Version
A	Arc	8
B	Paint Bucket	8
C	Circle	8
E	Eraser	8
L	Line	8
M	Move	8
O	Offset	8
P	Push/Pull	8
Q	Rotate	8
R	Rectangle	8
S	Scale	8
Select	Spacebar	8
Zoom Extent	Shift+Z	8

Shortcut Keys for SketchUp 7

Mouse also plays an important role for applying shortcut tricks. If you press left button of the mouse it will help you to select an object easily. Apply right button of the mouse after choosing a geometry and it will unveil a context menu from where the users can pick up a wide array of functions to accomplish any task.

Middle button alias wheel is utilized to zoom in and zoom out. Press it and drag, the user will be able to orbit just about the model. Push the shift key, click on the wheel and drag your mouse to apply the pan tool. Double click to re-center the view.

If you want to view the detailed lists of shortcuts, visit the menu bar and select “Tools” bar. You will see that all shortcuts are assigned with capital letters.

In order to view the shortcut control panel, choose window on the Menu Tab. Go to preference and click on it. Now a dialogue box will arrive, here choose shortcuts. To load , click on the import button and select preference.dat.

Now apply the filter key to search for the Protractor tool. Select the key which you would like to set as your shortcut key and press enter.

Get on that small “+” icon on the right and selected shortcut will be assigned. Click on “OK” to close the dialog box.

To get accustomed with the shortcut keys, the user has to make continuous exercises.