Home / Insider /

Ask Greg

What are some useful Shift-key shortcuts?

 

I intended to write an article that included all of the Revu keyboard shortcuts that use the Shift key, but then I realized that Revu includes around 60 Shift-key shortcuts. So instead, I decided to focus on the ones that I thought would be the most useful and interesting. There were quite a few that even I didn't know about, like how to toggle the Grid and Snap.

 

Keep in mind, there are many more keyboard shortcuts available in Revu that don't utilize the Shift key. In fact, you can find a more complete set of shortcuts at www.bluebeam.com/shortcuts, and you can see another list of notable shortcuts that I wrote about last year.

 

But enough about me, let's shift gears

 

Navigation and Viewing

 

Pan:

Shift+V

This selects the Pan or "hand" tool.

 

Cycle zoom:

Shift+Z

This selects and toggles between Pan and Zoom (magnifying glass) tools.

 

Scroll left and right:

Your mouse wheel normally zooms in and out, or scrolls up and down the page. However, you can also toggle the wheel to scroll left and right when you are zoomed in on the page:

 

In Scrolling Pages mode: Shift + Scroll wheel

In One Full Page mode: Ctrl + Shift + Scroll wheel


Editing Markups

 

Toggle Grid display:

Shift + G

 

Toggle Snap to grid:

Shift + S

 

Paste in place:

Ctrl + Shift + V

This pastes at the same location that you copied from instead of pasting at the location of the cursor, which is what Ctrl+V does. Paste in place is very useful when copying markups between pages or PDFs.

 

Toggle markup lock:

Ctrl + Shift + L

Locking a markup restricts changes to that markup until the lock is removed. This is helpful when you are working with markups that overlap or cross each other, and keeps you from accidentally selecting, moving or changing the wrong markup.


Shortcuts for Creating and Editing Markups

 

Create a line at 0, 45 or 90 degrees

by holding down the Shift key before defining the second point. This works with Lines, Arrows, Polygon and Polyline segments, and also with most types of Measurements.

 

Create a square or circle:

  • Click the Ellipse or Rectangle tool.
  • Click the first point.
  • Hold the Shift key down and then click the second point.

 

Convert an existing Rectangle or Ellipse into a square or circle:

  • Hold the Shift key down and click the corner control point of an existing Ellipse or Rectangle.

 

Resize an Image or Snapshot without distorting it:

  • Hold down the Shift key and click a corner control point of an Image or Snapshot to resize as needed.

 

Add a Control Point:

The following shortcut will work with multiple line markups, including Clouds, Polygons and Polylines, and Area and Perimeter measurements.

  • Hold down the Shift key and click a line segment.

Selecting Measurement tools

 

Cycle through Measurements:

There are no keyboard shortcuts that engage individual measurement types, but you can quickly cycle through them.

  • Press M to open the Measurement tab.
  • Press Shift + M to cycle through the measurement tools and stop on the one you want.

Advanced Text

 

Select all text:

Ctrl + Shift + A

The Select Text tool selects all text on the current page. This is a quick way to find out if a PDF contains real text or is a scanned image.