Shortcuts for Altium Designer Text-based Document Editors

 

The following shortcut keys are specific to text-based document editors, including the supported scripting text-based editors. For general information regarding shortcut keys - including access and editing, general Altium environment shortcuts, and accelerator keys - see Altium Designer Shortcut Keys

When looking at the shortcut key listings, keep in mind the following:

  • When referring to shortcuts, use of the plus (+) symbol denotes holding multiple keys down on the keyboard in the indicated sequence. For example, Shift+F1 means holding down the Shift key then pressing the F1 key. Likewise, Shift+Ctrl+PgUp means holding down the Shift key then holding down the Ctrl key at the same time and pressing the PgUp key.
  • Where use of the standard mouse buttons is made, Click refers to a single click of the left-hand mouse button, Double-Click refers to two clicks of the left-hand mouse button, and Right-Click refers to a single click of the right-hand mouse button.

General Editing

Ctrl+Z Restore a document to its state previous to the last operation. Multiple levels of undo are supported.
Ctrl+Y Restore changes made by the Undo feature. Multiple levels of redo are supported.
Ctrl+X Remove all selected text from the current document. A copy of the selection is placed on the standard Windows clipboard.
Ctrl+C Copy all selected text from the current document to the standard Windows clipboard.
Ctrl+V Place the current contents of the standard Windows clipboard into the active text-based document.
Right-Click Access context menu for the document.

Document Scrolling

Mouse Wheel Scroll vertically within the document.
PgDn Scroll down one page.
PgUp Scroll up one page.
Ctrl+Down Arrow Scroll down one line.
Ctrl+Up Arrow Scroll up one line.

Finding Text

Ctrl+F Access the Find Text dialog in which you can configure a search for specific text located in the current document, all text-based documents in the active project, all open text-based documents, or all text-based documents in a specified directory.
Ctrl+H Access the Replace Text dialog in which you can configure a search to locate and replace specific text - located in the current document, all text-based documents in the active project, all open text-based documents, or all text-based documents in a specified directory.
F3 Find the next occurrence of the last text search that was specified using the Find Text dialog.
Shift+Ctrl+F Find the next occurrence of the currently selected text in the active document.

Text Cursor Movement

Down Arrow Move the text cursor downwards one line at a time.
Left Arrow Move the text cursor to the left in the current line and by one character at a time.
Ctrl+Left Arrow Move the text cursor to the left one word at a time.
Right Arrow Move the text cursor to the right one character at a time.
Ctrl+Right Arrow Move the text cursor to the right one word at a time.
Home Move the text cursor to the beginning of the current line.
Ctrl+End Move the text cursor to the end of the file.
Ctrl+PgDn Move the text cursor to the bottom of the document window.
End Move the text cursor to the end of the current line.
Ctrl+Home Move the text cursor to the beginning of the file.
Ctrl+PgUp Move the text cursor to the top of the document window.
Up Arrow Move the text cursor upwards one line at a time.

Text Selection

Ctrl+A Select all of the text in the current document.
Click&Drag Full control of text selection.
Shift+Left Arrow Extend a selection by one character to the left of the current cursor position.
Shift+Ctrl+Left Arrow Extend a selection by one word to the left of the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Down Arrow Extend a column selection by one line down from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Left Arrow Extend a selection column by one column to the left of the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Right Arrow Extend a selection column by one column to the right of the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Up Arrow Extend a column selection by one line up from the current cursor position.
Shift+PgDn Extend a selection by one page down from the current cursor position.
Shift+Right Arrow Extend a selection by one character to the right of the current cursor position.
Shift+Ctrl+Right Arrow Extend a selection by one word to the right of the current cursor position.
Shift+Ctrl+Home Extend a selection to the beginning of the current document from the current cursor position.
Shift+Home

Extend a selection to the beginning of the current line from the current cursor position.

If the Smart 'Home' key option is enabled, on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog, then using this command for the first time will extend the selection to the first non-space character in the current line. With the next Shift+Home key press, the selection will extend to the beginning of the line, and so on. This Home key behavior matches that of the Microsoft™ Visual Studio™ product. Disable this option and the Shift+Home key sequence will always extend selection to the beginning of the current line.
Shift+Ctrl+PgDn Extend a selection to the bottom of the current document window from the current cursor position.
Shift+Ctrl+End Extend a selection to the end of the current document from the current cursor position.
Shift+End Extend a selection to the end of the current line from the current cursor position.
Shift+PgUp Extend a selection by one page up from the current cursor position.
Shift+Down Arrow Extend a selection by one line down from the current cursor position.
Shift+Up Arrow Extend a selection by one line up from the current cursor position.
Shift+Ctrl+PgUp Extend a selection to the top of the current document window from the current cursor position.

Text Column Selection

Alt+Click&Drag Full control of column selection.
Alt+Shift+PgDn Extend a column selection by one page down from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+PgUp Extend a column selection by one page up from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+Left Arrow Extend a column selection by one word to the left of the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+Right Arrow Extend a column selection by one word to the right of the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+PgDn Extend a column selection to the bottom of the current document window from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+Home Extend a column selection to the beginning of the current document from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+End Extend a column selection to the end of the current document from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Home

Extend a column selection to the beginning of the current line from the current cursor position.

If the Smart 'Home' key option is enabled, on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog, then using this command for the first time will extend the selection to the first non-space character in the current line. With the next Shift+Home key press, the selection will extend to the beginning of the line, and so on. This Home key behavior matches that of the Microsoft™ Visual Studio™ product. Disable this option and the Shift+Home key sequence will always extend selection to the beginning of the current line.
Alt+Shift+End Extend a column selection to the end of the current line from the current cursor position.
Alt+Shift+Ctrl+PgUp Extend a column selection to the top of the current document window from the current cursor position.
Note that column selection is disabled if word wrapping is enabled.

Insertion

Ctrl+N Insert a new line at the current cursor position.
Enter

Insert a carriage return at the current cursor position.

Enable the Auto indent mode option, on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog, to indent the new line automatically in-line with the first non-whitespace character on the preceding line. With this option disabled, the new line will not be indented, and the cursor will be placed ready at the start of the line.
Tab

Tab forwards from the current cursor position.

  • For standard tabbing, the number of characters involved in the tab is determined by the entry in the Tab Stops field, on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog. The default entry in this field is 4 - therefore this command will tab forwards four characters at a time.
  • For smart tabbing - with the Smart tab option enabled on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog - this command will tab forwards on the current line, in keeping with the start of new words on the previous line.
Shift+Tab

Tab backwards from the current cursor position.

For standard tabbing, the number of characters involved in the tab is determined by the entry in the Tab Stops field, on the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog. The default entry in this field is 4 - therefore this command will tab backwards four characters at a time.

Text Deletion

Backspace

Delete a single character to the left of the cursor. If one or more characters in the document are selected, the command will delete the selection.

Delete Delete a single character to the right of the cursor. If one or more characters in the document are selected, the command will delete the selection.
Ctrl+Backspace Delete all characters back to the beginning of the first word immediately to the left of the current cursor position.
Ctrl+Q+Y Delete all characters from the current cursor position to the end of the current line.
Ctrl+T Delete all characters up to the beginning of the first word immediately to the right of the current cursor position.

Miscellaneous

Shift+Ctrl+C Clear any filtering that is currently applied to the active document.
Ctrl+Enter Automatically open a document that the cursor is currently over. Note that this feature will only open documents that are stored in the same location on the hard disk as the text document making the call. If the document does not reside in that directory, an Open dialog will appear, from where you can browse to and open the required document. If the document is already open when a call is made, the document will become the active document. Note also that this feature will only open documents that have no spaces in their filenames. For example, Example_Design_File.SchDoc and ExampleDesignFile.SchDoc will both open using this feature, but Example Design File.SchDoc will not.
Insert

Toggle the text mode between Insert (additional text is added into the document at the cursor position) and Overwrite (additional text overwrites existing text as you type).

  • The current mode is shown on the Status Bar.
  • This feature can also be toggled from the Text Editors - General page of the Preferences dialog by enabling/disabling the Insert mode option.
Shift+Ctrl+n (n=1-9)

Store the current location of the text cursor into location marker n. A new location assigned to the location marker will overwrite a previously defined location.

Ctrl+n (n=1-9)

Move the text cursor to a predefined location on the current document, as stored in location marker n. If the applicable location marker has not been set, the text cursor will remain at its current location.

Scripting Specific

F9 Run the current script. If a run script is not defined, nominate a startup script procedure to execute in the Select Item to Run dialog. -
Ctrl+F9 Run the current script up to the line where the text cursor is currently positioned, then pause. -
F5

Toggle an enabled breakpoint for the current line. Clicking in the gutter will also toggle the breakpoint for the current line.

-
Ctrl+F7

Open the script Evaluate dialog to see the current value (result) of the expression located at the cursor. Note that this command is only available while the script is running or being debugged (stepped through).

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F7 Step into and execute the next line of code. Use to execute the current script one line at a time. -
F8 Step over (execute without stopping) a called procedure. If the line statement is not a called procedure, step into and execute the line as normal. -
Ctrl+F3 Halt (stop) a currently running script procedure. -
Ctrl+F5 Access the Add New Watch dialog in which you can define a new watch expression for the current script. -
Ctrl+Click on variable/method Jump the cursor to the respective variable/method declaration point. -
Ctrl+J Access the Statement Templates pop-up window. -
Ctrl+Space Access the Method Parameters pop-up window. -
Alt+Ctrl+B Open the Breakpoints panel. -
Alt+Ctrl+E Open the Code Explorer panel. -
Alt+Ctrl+I Open the Object Inspector panel. -
Alt+Ctrl+P Open the Tool Palette panel. -
Alt+Ctrl+S Open the Call Stack panel. -
Alt+Ctrl+W Open the Watch List panel. -
F12 Toggle between the Code and Form view for the active script document. -

 

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Note

The features available depend on your Altium product access level. Compare features included in the various levels of Altium Designer Software Subscription and functionality delivered through applications provided by the Altium 365 platform.

If you don’t see a discussed feature in your software, contact Altium Sales to find out more.

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