Cool Creo Shortcuts Engineering Pros Love

Advancing technologies like IoT and increasingly competitive markets leave engineers new and old scrambling for any possible advantage. Sometimes the simplest way to get ahead lies in the most basic of computer tools – the mouse and keyboard. Creo has many cool keyboard and mouse shortcuts that help you gain those bits of efficiency in all your projects, from design through final release.

To Display or Hide Items on the Model Tree

Select the item(s) on the Model Tree, then press CTRL + H to temporarily hide the objects in the Model Tree and on the mini toolbar. You’ll now see them moved to the Hidden Items layer.

Move Keyboard Shortcuts

Accurately and quickly placing new components in your model is a snap with a little keyboard-mouse coordination. Use these to get new components into just the right spot on the first try.

Press and hold CTRL + ALT and the middle mouse button to move the pointer to spin components before placing
Press and hold CTRL + ALT + right mouse button and move the pointer to drag the component around the screen

Fly Around Objects in 3D

Take a bird’s eye or ground level view of your model while dynamically viewing in 3D Mode. A quick key press combined with dragging the mouse makes easy work of spinning, panning, and zooming.

Holding down the middle mouse button while dragging to spin the model.
SHIFT + middle mouse button to pan the model
Drag back and forth to zoom in or out with CTRL + middle mouse button
Drag sideways with CTRL + middle mouse button to turn the model

Use All of That New Monitor

Large, high-resolution monitors are commonplace, but we rarely make the most of their potential. A simple tap on the F11 Key sweeps away the ribbon, model tree, message area, and status bar. Voila! Creo’s Full-Screen mode gives you a crisp, open field to work on your model.

The intelligent mini toolbar and right-click features keep most tools handy. If you need the ribbon or model tree, drift your mouse to the edge of the screen, and they’ll be back. Tap F11 when you’re ready to go back to the standard Creo layout.

Back to Square One

Sometimes you edit yourself into a rabbit hole and need a way back. These three quick keyboard commands will zoom out, unspin, unselect, and otherwise reset your model back to a natural starting point.

Use CTRL + G to regenerate a model after making an edit or making changes to relations and parameters.

CTRL + D resets the model back to default view. It’s nice after a dizzying round of zooming, spinning, and panning.

If you’re changing system settings like the datum display, or need to remove artifacts and the odd highlighted item in a complex model, repaint the entire screen with CTRL+ R.

Efficient Equation Editing

PTC Mathcad is the indispensable engineering notebook that integrates seamlessly with your Creo assemblies. But math is full of special symbols that can slow down your writing. Thoughtful crafting is fine for accuracy, but sometimes you just need to punch out the equation and get things moving.

Avoid the hunting and pecking with the mouse arrow and try these instead.