Hey there!
In this post, I’m going to go over how to modify the keyboard shortcuts in Revit.
There’s a bunch that come standard with Revit, and a lot of them are great and intuitive. But some – not so much. You can create your own keyboard shortcuts and you can even overwrite the ones that are already in there. You have a lot of freedom to have it make sense to you!
You can even create your own file that saves your custom keyboard commands and then transfer them from when you move from Revit 2019 to 2020, or whatever year you move to.
Alright, let’s get to it!
1. Open Up Keyboard Shortcuts Settings

Then go to the ‘User Interface’ tab on the left, and right below all the check boxes there is a a line that says ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ with the ‘Customize‘ button right next to it. Click on that and that’ll take you to where we can make some changes.

2. Modifying Shortcuts

Let’s say that I want to change the command for Modify.
- Search for that in the search bar. It looks like the current shortcut is ‘MD’.
- Click on the ‘MD‘ and then hit ‘Remove‘ towards the bottom of the screen.
- Now, I can click in the ‘Press new keys:‘ box and type in the keys I’d like to use for that shortcut.
- Once you’re OK with your keys hit the ‘Assign‘ plus button.
- Now, those keys will show up under the ‘Shortcuts’ column and you’ve just modified your command!
- Hit ‘OK‘ to save your commands and close out of this screen.


So that leaves you with two options:
- Use different keys for the shortcut you are currently trying to modify
- Find the command that pops up in the error box and either delete or change that shortcut
3. Exporting Shortcuts
Exporting shortcuts are super easy. You will be able to import them to any other version of Revit, so it’ll save you a ton of time when you upgrade from Revit 2019 to 2020.
Simply go to ‘Export‘ from the screen above and type in a file name and location to save and you’re all set! It’ll save it as a .xml file, which you’ll be able to use for importing, which is the next topic.
4. Importing Shortcuts
- Click on ‘Import‘ from that same screen we were in from above.
- A box will open up prompting you to find a file.
- Find the file we just saved from the previous step (or if you’ve done this before, find that file)
- Hit ‘OK‘
- A box will pop up with two options. Choose the second option that says ‘Overwrite existing Shortcut settings‘. The reason for this is because if you overwrote any standard commands, we want to replace all of those, not duplicate them. This will ensure that all the shortcuts will come in exactly as you had them in your previous version.
Alright, that’s all I have for how to modify Revit keyboard shortcuts. Hope you found that helpful!
As always, feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments below.
Cheers!