There are various methods for manipulating sketches in SolidWorks. This tutorial will cover the use of the “Move Entities” and “Modify” tools. Use the move entities command for selected or all entities. The modify command will move the whole sketch, as a result the origin symbol will be out of place. Follow the instructions using the example from the end of the article “How to fully define a sketch in SolidWorks“.
Move Entities
Begin by right clicking Sketch1 and selecting “Edit Sketch”. In sketch mode, select “Move Entities” from the CommandManager. Click the box in the “Entities to Move” section and select all entities of the sketch.
In the parameters list there are two options: From/To and X/Y. Use From/To and drag the base point to the desired location. Alternatively use X/Y to input values to move the sketch entities. For this tutorial use X/Y and set the values to 50mm and 75mm respectively.
Selecting the repeat button will move the selected entities by an additional increment. Click the green check mark to complete the commend.
The corner of the sketch was coincident with the origin point. As a result of moving the sketch, this relation no longer applies and the sketch is not fully defined. Refer to “How to fully define a sketch in SolidWorks” to fix this.
Modify
In an active sketch, select “Tools” – “Sketch tools” – “Modify…”. Next, set the X/Y values for translation to 50mm and 75mm, press Enter to complete the command. This will reposition the entire sketch to (50mm,75mm).
Note: The origin (in blue) has not moved.
Use “Position selected point” to freely drag the sketch. Select any point as a base point and drag the sketch to the desired position.
Follow the same procedure for sketches of any complexity.
