VBA macro to toggle white background in drawings

Introduction

On the SolidWorks forum, someone asked how to create a macro that toggles between the default drawing background color and a white color.

The goal was to make it easier to capture images where a white background was required.

Here is a simple macro that does precisely that. I will also explain the basic buttons/shortcuts/menus you need.

If you want to switch between other colors, you can modify that in the Color1 and Color2 constants below.

But how do we get that number that corresponds to the color we want? Have a look in the immediate window. We used a Debug.Print statement to get the value from the options.

Modify the number in the code (Color2), and when you run the macro, the background color will switch between white and your favorite color.

Code


                                 'This macro toggles between 2 colors for the background of drawings.

                                 'It uses a system option, so every drawing you open will get the choosen color

                                 'This can be usefull if you want to make screen captures on a white background.


                    
                    

                    
                         'Here you can set the 2 colors you want to toggle between

                         Const Color1 As Variant = 16777215 'color white

                         Const Color2 As Variant = 14411494 'color grey (default color for drawing background)

                    
                    

                    


                        Sub main()

                         try_:

                            On Error GoTo catch_

                          Dim swApp As Object

                          Set swApp = Application.SldWorks

                          Dim swModel As ModelDoc2

                          Set swModel = swApp.ActiveDoc

                           'Get the color on first use (look in Immediate window CTRL + G)

                           Dim Color As Variant

                           Color = swApp.GetUserPreferenceIntegerValue(swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swSystemColorsDrawingsPaper)

                           Debug.Print "Color : " + CStr(Color)

                          If Color <> Color1 Then

                            Color = swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue(swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swSystemColorsDrawingsPaper, Color1)

                          Else

                            Color = swApp.SetUserPreferenceIntegerValue(swUserPreferenceIntegerValue_e.swSystemColorsDrawingsPaper, Color2)

                          End If

                          swModel.ForceRebuild

                         GoTo finally_:

                         catch_:

                            Debug.Print "Error: " & Err.Number & ":" & Err.Source & ":" & Err.Description

                         finally_:

                            Debug.Print "FINISHED Toggle Drawing Background"

                         End Sub