SolidWorks

Introduction

Three document types: Part; Assembly; and Drawing
Build a simple part.
Sketches and features within a Part can be viewed and selected in “feature manager” on left panel.
Press the spacebar to select views.
Right-click a toolbar to customize it.
Be sure to check out the tutorials under “Help.”
A drafting standard is a collection of document presets. Choose one (usually ANSII or ISO) from the Properties menu.

Build a C-frame.
Every part begins as a 2D sketch.
A sketch must be drawn onto a plane or surface. If you’re having trouble drawing, be sure that you’ve selected the plane into which you plan to draw.
To deselect the line tool, either right-click/select, or press the escape key.
Every element in a sketch must be fully defined, meaning it must have a specific location and can’t move.
Under-defined entities are shown in blue, and have a (-) to the left in the feature manager.
Use relations and dimensions to fully specify the entities in a sketch. There are many to choose from.
The offset entities tool duplicates sketch entities at an offset, which can be useful for C-frames and many other parts.
Extrusions are available from the features tab.
Mid-plane extrusions give Parts symmetry, which can be very helpful when parts are combined into Assemblies.
The underlying sketch of an extrusion can be edited. Saving the sketch updates the extrusion.
Control-Z to undo.
Use the fillet tool to create rounded edges.

Start a bracket.
Zoom in/out with scoll wheel or Z/Shift-Z.
Fit the model on the screen by pressing “F”.
Arrows rotate model in increments of 15 degrees.
Control+arrow pans model.
Shift+arrow rotates model 90°.
Alt+arrow free rotates model.
View/Display/Tangent Edges will show and hide lines appearing between flat and curved surfaces.

Finish the bracket.
The Hole Wizard creates holes for standard fasteners. Use the Hole Wizard especially when a hole will be filled with a fastener.
Adding holes is a two-part process:
1. choose the hole type
2. place the holes
After creation, holes can be precisely positioned by constraining their center points with dimensions and relations.
Begin a sketch on a surface by right-clicking and clicking the Sketch icon.
Automatic guide lines help you place tangent lines. However, this sometimes fails to create a relation. If so, you must add it yourself.
Use Extruded Cut to remove material from a model. Multiple surfaces can be selected for cutaway by clicking them.

Build a compression spring.
Helix/Spiral is a kind of 3D feature similar to Extruded Boss/Base. Like other features, it operates on a sketch through the third dimension.
Avoid re-drawing entities by copying them from one plane to another with Convert Entities.
Add a new plane through Reference Geometry.
Combine curves with Composite Curve.
A Pierce Relation can be used to align a circle centerpoint with an out-of-plane curve.
Swept Boss/Base extrudes along a curve.