CATIA · Shortcuts · Workspace Setup
If you use CATIA every day, you’re clicking the same commands hundreds of times — Hide/Show, Measure Between, Measure Item. Every time you move your mouse to hunt down an icon on the toolbar, you’re burning time and wearing out your wrist.
“Using CATIA without custom shortcuts is like playing StarCraft with only a mouse.”
In this post, I’ll cover how to assign custom keyboard shortcuts (Accelerators) in CATIA, the key combos experienced designers swear by, and how to back up your settings so you never have to redo them again.
1. How to Assign Custom Keyboard Shortcuts (Accelerators)
CATIA lets you bind a keyboard shortcut to virtually any command in the software. The process is straightforward once you know where to look.
- From the top menu bar, go to Tools > Customize.
- In the Customize dialog, click the Commands tab at the top.
- In the left panel (Categories), select [All Commands]. This lists every CATIA command alphabetically.
- Find and select the command you want to assign a shortcut to (e.g., Hide/Show).
- Click the Show Properties… button in the lower right of the dialog.
- Click inside the Accelerator field, type or press your desired key combination (e.g., Space), then click Close. Done.
Don’t want to scroll through All Commands? If the command already has an icon on a toolbar, just open Tools > Customize and then right-click the icon directly → Properties. The Accelerator field is right there.
This happens when the command isn’t placed on any toolbar. CATIA won’t let you assign a shortcut to a command that has no toolbar presence. The fix: create a new empty toolbar (Toolbars tab → New), drag the command onto it, then go back and assign the shortcut. A lot of people get stuck on this one.
2. The Shortcut Combinations Every Designer Should Set Up
These are the shortcuts that experienced CATIA designers consistently recommend — some are built-in defaults, others need to be manually assigned. Adjust them to whatever feels natural for your hands. If there’s a conflict with an existing shortcut, CATIA will warn you so you can try a different combo.
| Command | Recommended Shortcut | Notes & Practical Value |
|---|---|---|
| Hide/Show | Space (default: F9) | ★ The #1 most-used command. Toggles visibility of parts and sketches. The default F9 works, but remapping to Spacebar — reachable with your left thumb without moving your hand — is a game changer. |
| Measure Between | Alt + D | Measures the distance between two points, edges, or faces. Use this constantly during design review. |
| Measure Item | Alt + M | Measures properties of a single element — length, area, radius, etc. Pairs naturally with Measure Between. |
| Center Graph | Alt + C | Instantly scrolls the specification tree to highlight the selected part. Indispensable when working with large assemblies with deeply nested trees. |
| Reframe On | F | Fits the selected part to the center of your screen. Perfect for when a part has gone off-screen or is too small to work with. |
| Swap Visible Space | F10 (built-in default) | Flips what’s visible and what’s hidden — essentially the other side of Hide/Show. Essential for finding parts you’ve hidden and can’t locate anymore. |
3. Digging Out Hidden Commands Worth Shortcutting
Some of CATIA’s most useful commands are buried deep in dropdown menus — under Insert, Tools, and so on — with no toolbar icon in sight. These are exactly the commands you should pull out with a shortcut.
- Paste Special (as Result): When you copy a surface or solid body from an external part, this pastes it as a dumb solid — no link back to the source. Assign Ctrl + Shift + V to separate it from your regular Ctrl+V paste. Once you get used to it, you’ll use it all the time.
- Isolate: Breaks the external reference link on a copied sketch or feature. Critical in assembly work when you need to prevent constraint errors from propagating. Map it to something like Alt + I and you’ll save yourself a lot of digging through menus.
- Update All (Ctrl + U): Synchronizes all features after a modification. Works great inside a single part, but use extreme caution in assembly context. If any constraints are broken or over-defined, running Update All can fling parts to unexpected positions and corrupt your assembly structure. This comes up a lot in forum posts: “My parts moved after Update All.” In assemblies, prefer right-click → Local Update on just the part you’ve modified.
4. Backing Up Your Settings (CATSettings)
Spent an hour getting your shortcuts and toolbars exactly right? Don’t lose it all to a PC format or desk move. All your CATIA workspace settings are stored in a single folder called CATSettings.
C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\DassaultSystemes\CATSettings
※ AppData is a hidden folder. Enable “Show hidden items” in File Explorer to access it.
Zip up the entire CATSettings folder and store it somewhere safe — email it to yourself, drop it in Google Drive, whatever works. On a new machine, close CATIA, extract the zip into the same path, and your entire workspace is restored instantly. Shortcuts, toolbar layouts, all of it.
Wrapping Up
Setting up shortcuts takes maybe 30 minutes. The time it saves you every single day after that is hard to overstate. Here’s the short version:
- Remap Hide/Show to Spacebar, set Alt+D and Alt+M for measuring — just these three will cut hundreds of mouse trips per day
- Bring buried commands like Paste Special (as Result) and Isolate out of the menu maze with custom shortcuts
- The moment you’re happy with your setup, back up your CATSettings folder — don’t wait until you need it
Right hand on the mouse, left hand resting lightly on the keyboard — that’s the efficient CATIA workflow. Get your shortcuts dialed in and you’ll not only work faster, you’ll actually feel less tired at the end of the day.