The Best SolidWorks Books Around
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
SolidWorks is the leading name in the field of solid modeling, and anyone working in this area will need to have a good grounding in how to use the relevant packages. Although there are a number of online courses available via the internet, most people still find that learning and reference is easier to do from a printed page.
The good news is that there are a number of excellent SolidWorks books which can help you to become more confident in your use of SolidWorks, and therefore assist you in advancing your career. Some of these books are more suitable for beginners and some for experts, but they are all worth checking out.
An excellent place to start is with the books and guides written by Paul Tran of GoEngineer. These are published in forms suitable for both the Essentials and the Advanced levels of SolidWorks, and have received excellent feedback from purchasers.
They work by breaking down real-world project examples into bite-sized, easily understandable steps which can be quickly absorbed and easily remembered by readers. SolidWorks books only have value if they make their readers feel that they truly understand the lessons they have learned, and these books certainly succeed in doing that.
The books’ author is also a highly respected expert on the subject of using SolidWorks. Paul Tran has been involved in manufacturing and mechanical engineering for over a quarter of a century. For the majority of that time, he was supporting and teaching the use of both SolidWorks itself and its various add-on packages.
He is responsible for having trained more than six thousand users, so you can be sure that the SolidWorks books he has written are based on extensive experience in the real world. His strong belief is that learning software as sophisticated as this means starting from the very beginning.
If you are considering taking the more advanced exam to become a Certified SolidWorks Expert, it’s a good idea to get hold of the Exam Preparation Materials book. It’s also an excellent store of resources for people who are already highly literate in Computer Aided Design but want to increase their level of knowledge about the program.
This is one of the essential SolidWorks books for any advanced student or professional in the CAD industry, since it takes its examples from real exam challenges. The chapters are kept fairly short – around 20 pages at most – making it easy to understand each aspect of the design concepts being discussed.
As you might expect for a program that has become an industry standard, there is a very large range of books concerning various aspects of using SolidWorks, so it is important to choose carefully. Make sure that any publications you are thinking of buying are up to date, since new releases of the software often add extra features, or change the way existing ones work.
Older SolidWorks books may still contain some useful information, but to get the most out of the program it really is vital to buy the newest editions available. If you remember these tips, you should be able to improve your SolidWorks skills until you have become a real expert.