Sketching on a SolidWorks drawing

If you are new to SolidWorks, there can be times when things are a little frustrating. One of those simple things is adding notes or sketching lines on an exisiting drawing with several views.

You add your note or centerline and then move one of the views but the note you added stays where it is and you end up having to move it seperately.

Or you have a note that belongs somewhere else in the drawing that gets moved when you are rearranging views when you dont want it to.

The solution to these problems is found in these excerpts from the SolidWorks help section.

 

Lock View Focus.

Allows you to add sketch entities to views, even when the pointer is close to another view. You can be sure that the items you are adding belong to the views you want. You can also double-click views to lock the focus.

So if you want to add a note or a line to views and have them move when you move the view, click in the views, right click and lock the view focus, then add the items you want.

Once you are finished just click the views and unselect the lock view focus. Now your items should move in lock step with the views.

What about notes that you want to be part of the sheet. Say you have some general material or heat treatment notes that you dont want to have moved when views are manipulated. You need to use lock sheet focus.

Lock Sheet Focus.

Allows you to add sketch entities to the sheet. Otherwise, the sketch entities belong to the view that is closest to where you begin sketching. You can also double-click a sheet to lock the focus. Lock Sheet Focus is available when at least one drawing view is present. When Lock Sheet Focus is enabled, the drawing sheet border is pink.

Finally if you are in a situation where you want to lock certain projections in postion use lock view position. I find this useful when I want to use a single projection to show an open or closed position by superimposing views on top of each other:

Create two views of the same part or assembly. Align them horizontally or vertically as required. Right-click anywhere in the desired view and select Lock View Position. Then you can line up the copied views right over top of the original, making it look as if both are the same.

Following these directions should help so that notes and sketched lines dont end up where they are not supposed to be!