VBA macro to toggle white background in drawings

Author: Eddy Alleman (EDAL Solutions)

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Introduction On the SolidWorks forum someone asked how to make 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 exactly that. I will also explain the basic buttons/shortcuts/menus you need.

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

But how do we get that number that corresponds to the color we want?

Just change it to your favorite color manually in SolidWorks options (in the image above I choose for a more distinct yellow color) Then open the macro with the macro editor (Menu Tools > Macro > Edit or use the Macros toolbar). Open the immediate window if it is not already visible (CTRL + G) Run the macro (F5 or green arrow button) and in the immediate window you should see the color you choose represented by a number:

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

'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