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The Ultimate Guide to Revit Shortcuts
February 25, 2015 By Michael Kilkelly 14 Comments
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Categories

General (5)

How­to (7)

Manage Your Data (3)

Maximize Your Tools (17)

Personal Productivity (4)

Project Planning (2)

For all the work you do in Revit, there’s a keyboard shortcut that can help you do it faster. Revit Macros (10)

Task Automation (14)

Here’s a roundup featuring some of my favorite Revit keyboard shortcuts to create and
organize your model. Keep reading to learn how to create your own shortcuts.
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SL – Split elements
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Arrow Keys – Nudges the selected element
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Shift + Arrow – Nudges the selected element 10x.

CTRL – Select multiple elements

MD – Activate the Modify tool

TAB – Cycle through multiple overlapping elements

SHIFT + TAB – Reverse the order of TAB cycling

Views
HI – Isolate element

HH – Hide element

HC – Hide category

SD – Shaded with edges

TL – Thin Lines

VV – Visibility / Graphics dialog for the current view

WF – Wire frame

ZE – Zoom to fit

SHIFT + Middle Mouse – Orbit in 3D views or pan in 2D views. Selecting an object

before pressing SHIFT + Middle Mouse will cause the orbit to rotate around the selected
object.

File Operations
CTRL + O – Open a new file

CTRL + N – Create a new project file

CTRL + S – Save the current file

Miscellaneous
ALT – Activates the keyboard designation for all the items on the interface. Might be
useful if your mouse kicks the bucket before you’ve saved your file.

Create Your Own Revit Shortcuts

You can easily program your own Revit keyboard shortcuts. To do so, go to View > User
Interface > Keyboard Shortcuts or type “KS”.

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View > User Interface > Keyboard Shortcuts

This will open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box.

Keyboard Shortcuts dialog

All of the default keyboard shortcuts are listed. Any shortcut listed in gray is a system shortcut
and cannot be changed. To add a shortcut, find the command in the “Command” column or
enter the command name in the “Search” field. Once you’ve selected the command, enter
the shortcut combination in the “Press new keys” text box then click the “Assign” button.

You have a lot of flexibility assigning shortcuts. A single command can have multiple
shortcuts. Likewise, a single shortcut can be used on multiple commands. In this case, you
use the arrow keys to cycle through the commands as displayed in the status bar. Once you
have the command you want, press the space bar to execute the command.

Some custom shortcuts you might want to consider are:

33 – Default 3D View

AA – Activate view

DD – Deactivate view

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JJ – Join geometry

ML – Manage Links

MM – Macro Manager

SAV – Select all instances in view

SAS – Select all instances in project

WS – Worksets

WW – Create walls

Want some more suggestions? Check out this discussion on LinkedIn.

Naming Your Shortcuts

Speed is king when it comes to naming your shortcuts. Consider defining your shortcuts
using the same letter or letters closely located on the keyboard. JJ for Join Geometry or AA
for Activate View are two good examples.

You can even create three or four letter shortcuts if you need similarly named shortcuts. You
could define WW for Create Wall and WWW for Worksets.

This method minimizes the amount of hunting and pecking required to find your shortcuts. It
lets you keep one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse.

So how about you? How do you save time in Revit? What are your favorite shortcuts? Leave
a comment below!

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Filed Under: How­to, Maximize Your Tools

Comments

Neo says:
February 26, 2015 at 3:02 pm

This is very important topic that most of Revit users don’t take advantage of!
I use it always. But today’s article opened my eyes to (AA & DD), activate and deactivate
views as 2013 ver doesn’t use mouse double click.
Thanks Michael!

Reply

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Kirshan Kumar says:

February 26, 2015 at 10:54 pm

It is very appreciate for helping the Revit modular.

Keep Going, I will also provide some use full content

Reply

André says:
February 27, 2015 at 6:01 am

Hi Michael. In addition to those shortcuts listed above I also use (user

defined) IC and IE for ‘isolate category’ and ‘isolate elements’ – great for quickly
isolating a view enabling you to edit and make changes. Then I ‘unhide’ with UH. Setting
up a user defined shortcuts for trim individual (ST) and multiple (STT) is also pretty
handy. Why AD haven’t done this already with factory settings is a mystery!
Cheers
André

Reply

apetitdeux says:
April 1, 2015 at 9:49 am

Hello

Interesting post – I’m really fond of keyboard shortcuts.

My favourite ones are:

EE: open edit mode (floor, wall profile, extrusion…) – you can have the same shortcut
for all
FF: finish edit mode (floor, wall profile, extrusion…)
CC: exit edit mode and cancel (floor, wall profile, extrusion…)
² : Align tool
QZ: open default 3D view
QQQ: close all windows
AT: attach / TA: detach

Reply

Michael Kilkelly says:

April 1, 2015 at 11:48 am

Great suggestions. I really like QQQ for close all windows. I’m going to add
that to my shortcuts. Thanks!

Reply

apetitdeux says:
April 14, 2015 at 11:51 am

yes, it definitely has a relaxing effect !

Reply

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Scott M B Gustafson says:

April 13, 2015 at 12:40 am

I am amazed at how many people don’t use shortcuts. There are commands
that I use all the time and if I didn’t have shortcuts for them the work would take forever.
I like to tell people to look at the full list of commands available to be shortcutted and
determine which ones they use the most often. Depending on your working style or your
position in an office, the needs of a conceptual designer might be different from a
person doing the technical drawings.

Some of my favorites

DI = Dimension
HC = Hide Category
HE = Hide Element
SV = Create a Section
SE = Spot Elevation
SS = Spot Slope
CHW = Close Hidden Windows
ETC = Export Current View to CAD
TX = Text
AV = Activate View
DV = Deactivate View

Reply

apetitdeux says:
April 14, 2015 at 11:50 am

Shortcuts are really a way of thinking ! Now I’m so used to them that I use
them in my everyday language. You’ll often hear me tell my colleagues : “Now, SA
your walls and VD them.”
You can even go further by using shortcut combos
I often have to “split” a set of floors that have been all drawn in the same sketch
For instance I would click the floor, and then
EE (enter edit mode)
window select part of the floors to split
CTRL­X
FF (finish edit mode)
CS (create similar)
XS (paste same position)
FF (finish edit mode)
et voilà !

Reply

Charles H Berteaux IV says:

July 1, 2015 at 12:49 pm

these are so important. great way to speed up productivity. i have a baseline

that i have set up for our office, and ask people to print them out and keep it at their
desk pinned up somewhere.

Reply

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Ingo says:
July 2, 2015 at 3:34 am

Hi, folks,

yes, shortcuts are great. I like to use identical letters to be superfast :

II isolate Element in view

RR reset above
AA activate view
DD deactivate view
HH hide element in view
UU unhide element in view
CC copy
MM move
TT tile (windows)
FF halftone element in view (this is a visual override)
etc.

Note : I make sure that there are no duplicate definitions, i.e. if CC was used for another
revit command, I remove it (same method one adds shortcuts one can remove them).

And here another absolute winner :

F2 button : project browser on/off toggle

F4 button : properties on/off toggle

This is most fantastic to free monitor space if you only have a single monitor.

Best Regards,
Ingo from Cape Town

Reply

Michael Kilkelly says:

July 2, 2015 at 8:56 am

I too like the double letter shortcuts. They’re fast! Setting F2 and F4 for the
project and properties windows is a great idea. Thanks for the suggestions!

Reply

Michael Kilkelly says:

July 21, 2015 at 11:11 am

Autodesk recently released a guide outlining all the default Revit shortcuts.
You can download it here: http://www.autodesk.com/shortcuts/revit

Reply

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