Try it: open SolidCraft above and run the Hole command to see Personal presets in the dialog. This page covers the preset feature itself; for the thread catalogues and tap-drill sizes a hole can use, see SolidCraft Threads.
What a Hole preset is for
If you cut the same counterbore, the same M8 tapped hole, or the same countersink across many parts and many projects, re-entering those parameters every time is repetitive. SolidCraft's Hole command has a Personal presets section that saves a named snapshot of the current hole parameters to your user profile rather than to the design file. Because the preset sits in the profile, it is available in every project opened under that profile and survives restarting the application — it is a personal tool preference, not something a teammate inherits by opening your file.
Saving, loading and updating a preset
To save one: open Hole, set up the parameters you want, expand Personal presets, and choose Save new. A confirmation prompt asks for a name; confirming stores the current form under that name.
To reuse one: pick a different saved name from the list, and SolidCraft immediately fills the open Hole form with that preset's values. This fill happens once, not every frame, so you can load a preset and then hand-tune individual fields without SolidCraft re-applying the preset over your edits. If you do change a loaded preset's values, SolidCraft marks it with a * before its name in the list so you can see it no longer matches what you have open — reverting those edits clears the marker again.
Next to the selected preset is a small Save icon that overwrites that exact preset with the current form, with no naming prompt. It is greyed out until you have an active selection and have actually changed something. Save new with a name that already exists reports a conflict instead of silently replacing the old entry — you have to go through the Save icon, or Rename, to intentionally change a stored preset.
Loading a preset only fills the form; it does not create or edit a feature on its own. You still run the normal OK/Apply to commit a hole, and Cancel closes the dialog without touching the model. Saving, renaming or deleting a preset is a separate action from committing or cancelling the Hole operation itself — you can manage your preset library without ever creating a hole.
Every newly opened Hole dialog starts with nothing selected, so there is no leftover preset silently biasing a fresh hole.
What is saved, and what is left out
A preset is meant to travel between projects, so SolidCraft only keeps the parts of a hole definition that make sense outside the project they were created in:
- Saved: hole type (simple or drilled, counterbore, countersink, tapped), dimensions, thread designations, extent mode, the independent flat-or-angled bottom choice, thread direction (right/left), and full-versus-partial tapping. Units are written explicitly when saving, including millimetres, so a preset does not depend on the design's current unit setting. An expression that references a named project parameter is re-evaluated by the normal Hole operation when you load the preset in a different project — the preset itself does not copy that project's parameter values.
- Not saved: position, the picked face, sketch identifiers, placement mode, target bodies, direction picks, and operation history. If a preset was made with To Object placement, only the extent choice carries over; you have to make a fresh destination selection after loading it, and whatever placement picks are currently in the open form stay as they are.
This split is why a preset behaves like a tool setting rather than a copy-pasted feature: it remembers the shape of the hole, not where it goes.
Managing the library: rename, delete, limits
Rename opens a name prompt prefilled with the current name; confirming applies the new name, and Cancel leaves the library and the open Hole form untouched. An empty, overlong or duplicate name reports an error in the prompt rather than silently failing. Delete asks for a second confirmation before removing the preset, and it only ever removes that one personal preset — it cannot touch holes already built into a design. Names are compared case-insensitively, so Counterbore M8 and counterbore m8 count as the same name.
The personal library caps out at 64 entries. Names are limited to 96 UTF-8 bytes and each parameter expression to 512 UTF-8 bytes. If a stored row is somehow malformed, SolidCraft skips just that row rather than discarding the rest of your presets, and resetting other preferences on the preferences page does not erase the library. There is no design-file format change involved, and the feature does not depend on a project or any PDM/connection service — it is purely a personal-profile preference.
Compatibility with older presets and tapped options
A few defaults exist for presets saved before newer options were added. Older drilled-hole presets still imply an angled bottom, while older recess (counterbore/countersink) presets default to flat. Presets also independently retain right/left thread direction and full/partial tapping; older records made before those options existed simply default to right-hand, full-depth. Partial-depth expressions carry their own source units internally, so recalling a millimetre preset inside an inch-unit design keeps the same physical depth rather than reinterpreting the number.
Loading a preset clears any unfinished custom-thread draft in the open form. If the active custom-thread draft is invalid when you try to save, SolidCraft reports an error instead of silently saving the last valid value in its place — and inactive diameter or full-depth fields do not block saving an otherwise valid tapped preset. Any thread option SolidCraft does not yet recognise (from a newer version, for example) survives being renamed or re-saved; on recall, SolidCraft rejects the whole operation before touching any Hole field, rather than quietly dropping the part it does not understand.
Why use presets instead of re-typing hole parameters
The practical case for Personal Hole presets is standardisation across parts and projects without a shared file or connected PDM system: one person's set of "this shop's standard counterbore" or "this project's M6 tapped hole" lives in their profile and is one click away the next time they need it, in any design they open. Because the preset only stores the shape of the hole and not its position, it stays reusable across completely different geometry — the same counterbore preset works on a bracket today and a housing next week.