Creating Drawings

Drafting in SOLIDWORKS

You can draft a drawing in SOLIDWORKS without creating a model.

To draft a drawing in SOLIDWORKS without creating a model:
  1. Open a New drawing document. Choose a template.
  2. Draw lines, rectangles, circles, and other entities with the tools on the Sketch toolbar.
  3. Dimension the entities with the Smart Dimension tool on the Dimensions/Relations toolbar.
  4. Add annotations (Notes, Geometric Tolerance Symbols, Balloons, and so on) with tools on the Annotation toolbar.

Creating Drawings from Models

You can create drawings from part and assembly documents.

To generate drawings from part and assembly documents:

  1. In a part or assembly document, click Make Drawing from Part/Assembly on the Standard toolbar and select a template in the Sheet Format/Size dialog box.
    The View Palette opens on the right side of the window.
  2. Click to pin the View Palette.
  3. Drag a view from the View Palette onto the drawing sheet.
  4. In the Drawing View or Projected View PropertyManager, set options such as orientation, display style, scale, etc. then click .
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add views.
    You can have any drawing views of any models in a given drawing document.
Model Part
Drawing with several views and dimensions inserted