Page 39 - Mastering SolidWorks

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StartIng SolIdWorkS for the fIrSt tIme 7

to access many commands. You should become comfortable with at least one method for
accessing the tools you need to use. It isn’t necessary to know all the ways unless you are
teaching others (or writing a book).

Viewing the Welcome to SolidWorks Dialog
The Welcome to SolidWorks screen, shown in Figure 1.5, is the first thing to greet you when you
open the software. This helps you open recent files, browse for existing data, or create a new
document. The Advanced button gives you access to all available templates (templates will be
covered later in this chapter), and you can look inside the folders for each of the recent docu-
ments by hovering the mouse cursor over the preview.

Figure 1.5
The Welcome to
SolidWorks screen

The tabs at the top of the dialog (Home, Recent, Learn, and Alerts) will reconfigure the
Welcome dialog to show various topics. The Learn tab has links to various training and tutorial
material, sample parts, and assemblies. The Alerts tab shows SolidWorks news such as the
release of a Beta or special notices about problems or fixes in the software.
Also notice at the bottom of the Welcome dialog is the Tip of the Day. You can cycle through
these tips when you have a few spare moments.

Accessing What’s New
You can find the What’s New documentation in the Help menu, as shown in Figure 1.4. You can
also enable interactive What’s New options (Help ➢ What’s New ➢ Interactive). This adds a
question mark with an asterisk symbol next to menu items that are new and have special Help
file entries. You will find more information about setting up the SolidWorks interface in
Chapter 2, “Navigating the SolidWorks Interface.”