Drawing Alignment in SOLIDWORKS

Aligning Drawing

When drawings are created in SolidWorks a lot of time is spent in formatting the drawing.  SolidWorks offers many tools to help the user achieve the desired drawing format.  One such tool is the use of Alignment.

Consider a plate modeled in SolidWorks as shown below:

To create a drawing from this model we go to File> Make Drawing from Part.

A blank drawing page will appear and the task pane will give you the option of selecting one of many standard drawing views.  In this case the Top view will be selected

Click and drag the selected view onto the page.  Once the view is inserted into the page you have the option to modify the view scale which can be done in the Drawing View property box.

A drawing view may be copied by selecting the drawing view, using keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste a second copy of the drawing.  Note that the two drawings move independently from one another and are not linked.

In order to align the two drawing views, select both views, right click and select Alignment from the quick menu.

Alignment comes with multiple options.  Alignment may be applied to the horizontal or the vertical.  Alignment by the Origin will align the origin from one view to the other view.  Alignment by the Center will automatically alignment both drawings about the center.   This distinguishing feature is useful when aligning different drawing, detail views etc.

Once you make your selection on the type of alignment, the mouse cursor will change allowing you to select one of the drawing views.  Your choice of selection will make the drawing view the parent and the other, the child.

Now your drawing views are aligned and the formatting is improved.  Please note that at any point you have the option to break the alignment by selecting the view, right click > Alignment > Break Alignment.  That will return the drawing views to a free state.