Why Are My Centerlines Solid in SOLIDWORKS?

Centerlines are dashed lines that can be inserted into a drawing by holding CTRL and clicking the edges/sides of the cylinder. You will see a dashed line has been inserted into the view. Similarly, you can insert a center mark by selecting the edge of a hole and then selecting the Center Mark command. These lines are quite useful for dimensioning and annotating drawings, and, as a result, they have become standardized as a fundamental part of GD&T. But if you have SOLIDWORKS 2025 SP3 installed, you may have noticed some changes in the behavior of centerlines and have asked yourself, "Why are centerlines coming in as a solid line in SOLIDWORKS 2025 SP3? What has changed, and how can I stop this?" 

Let’s Check the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

As outlined in QA00000424556 in the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base, SOLIDWORKS has actually expanded the functionality and control of centerlines to support the use of layers.

Layers are commonly used to control the color of annotations. A prime example of this is with “Red Line Drawings”. Adding a layer, set to red, allows an engineer to quickly make all his edits to a drawing that can be shown, hidden, or modified all at the same time. Layers can also control line weight and style.

I often compare SOLIDWORKS to a fighter jet - it gives us a high degree of control, but this high degree of control adds complexity that needs to be managed.

Control Centerlines with Layers

The first step is to turn on the Layers toolbar. The quickest way to have your centerlines come in as dashed is to start working in the Per Standard layer option.

In previous versions of SOLIDWORKS, if you moved a centerline to another layer (perhaps to change its color, like in our red line example), the centerline would change color, but it wouldn’t obey the layer’s line style. But in SOLIDWORKS 2025 SP3, it will. So, if you are unknowingly working in the “format” layer, this causes your lines to come in as solid. I suggest the Per Standard layer because this is not actually a layer at all. Under this setting, the line follows the standards that are set in the document properties of your template.

This brings us to the second solution. A great option is to add a layer to your organization's template titled “centerlines/marks”. This solution requires some extra steps, but it provides consistent results across your team. We have a video, SOLIDWORKS Drawing Templates, that goes over the steps to update your templates.

We can then define how all the centerlines and marks look (if you want your centerlines or marks to look different, add a layer for each). This means that if you ever need to change the way your centerlines look in the future, you can change all of them in the entire drawing just by changing the layer.

Additionally, if you ever need to hide the centerlines to export the drawing as a DXF or DWG (some lasers or CNC machines may make cuts on centerlines), you can hide the center mark for all the holes in your drawing with a few easy clicks.

Want to learn more? Check out more tutorials below. Additionally, check out the GoEngineer Community, where you can create forum posts, enter design contests, and answer questions from other SOLIDWORKS users. 

If you need help making SOLIDWORKS work for your application or would like pointers to improve productivity in your design process, consider scheduling an Application Mentoring Session with an Application Engineer.

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