Blender Hotkeys in the 3D View

Part of the Blender For Dummies Cheat Sheet

When you’re creating 3D computer animation with Blender, you spend a lot of time in the 3D view. And, just to accommodate you, Blender supplies hotkeys you can use in three-dimensional graphics to do almost everything — select, toggle views, play, rotate, as well as the more technical tasks such as extrude, mirror, and link vertices (to link or not to link — it’s not really even a question).

Common Keyboard Hotkeys in the 3D View
Hotkey	Description
A	Toggle select all/none
Alt+A	Play animation in view
B	Border select
B-->B (edit mode)	Brush select
Shift+D	Duplicate
Alt+D	Linked duplicate
E (edit mode)	Extrude
F (edit mode)	Create face/edge
G	Grab/move
Alt+G	Clear location
Hide	Hide selected
Alt+H	Reveal all
I	Insert keyframe
Ctrl+J	Join selected objects
L (edit mode)	Select linked vertices
Shift+L (edit mode)	Deselect linked vertices
M	Move selection to layer
Ctrl+M	Mirror selection
N	Show floating panel
Ctrl+N	Calculate normals outside
O (edit mode)	Proportional edit mode
P	Run game engine
Ctrl+P	Make parent
Alt+P	Clear parent
R	Rotate
Alt+R	Clear rotation
S	Scale
Alt+S	Clear scale
U (edit mode)	Unwrap mesh
V	Toggle Vertex Paint mode
W (edit mode)	Specials menu
Ctrl+W	Save file
X	Delete selection
Ctrl+X	New Blender session
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo
Spacebar	Show toolbox
Shift+Spacebar	Maximize window
Ctrl+Spacebar	Toggle manipulator
Alt+Spacebar	Change manipulator orientation
Tab	Toggle Edit mode
Shift+Tab	Toggle snapping

The numbers across the top of the keyboard show the first ten Blender layers. Alt+Any number shows the last ten layers. Shift+Any number allows you to show more multiple layers simultaneously.