Trying to move an annotation arrow but drawing view moves instead?

Have you ever tried to move an arrow of an annotation note, but instead the drawing view itself moved?   To fix the mistake, you are forced to undo and retry again.  The problem can pop up fairly frequently when trying to move balloons on an assembly drawing.  If a balloon is pointing to a vertex of the model, it is very difficult to select the arrow instead of the vertex point.  This can be very annoying.

So, how does one gain control over these wily drawing views?  SolidWorks allows users to lock the view’s position on the drawing.  Locking the view will prevent it from accidentally shifting when trying to move the annotation arrow.  To lock a view’s position, RMB click on that view.  This will open the Shortcut Menu.  Select Lock View Position.  This setting will lock the view’s position.  Of course, you can undo this by returning to the Shortcut Menu and selecting Unlock View Position.

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Update for SOLIDWORKS 2014: You no longer have to lock view focus or filter selection.  In SOLIDWORKS 2014, you can now simply select the balloon first, then select the tip of its arrow.  This will allow you to move the arrow (reattach it somewhere else) without any workarounds.

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper