Is there anyway to use side and top views without a numpad?

[Andrew_Beebe]

I don’t have a numpad on my keyboard so I was wondering if there is any way to utilize the side views without using a numpad?

[Christopher_Powell]

Been a while since you posted, welcome back!

I’m not much of a blender person, but here is what I found that might help:

1. Emulate Numpad:

• Open Blender.
• Go to “Edit” in the top-left corner of the window.
• Select “Preferences.”
• In the Preferences window, go to the “Keymap” tab.
• Check the “Emulate Numpad” option. This will allow you to use the number keys above the letter keys as a substitute for the numpad.

2. Use the View Menu:

• If you want to access views without using hotkeys, you can also use the View menu at the bottom of the 3D Viewport.
• Click on the “View” menu.
• Choose the desired view (Front, Right, Top, etc.) from the “Viewpoint” submenu.

3. Customize Hotkeys:

• You can also customize your own hotkeys for the various views.
• In the Preferences window, go to the “Keymap” tab.
• Search for “View” to find the view-related commands.
• Set your preferred keys for Front, Right, Top, etc.

4. Pie Menus:

• Blender has Pie Menus that can be activated by holding down a key and dragging the mouse in a certain direction.
• For example, you can hold down the “V” key and drag the mouse to get a pie menu with different views.

Choose the method that suits you best. Emulating the numpad is a quick solution, but customizing hotkeys or using pie menus can provide a more personalized and efficient workflow.

Hope this helps!

[NP5]

Personally, Use the menus.

Get a cheap new proper full keyboard even easier.

Or the above alternatives well explained By C_P.

[Dwayne]

I recommend not using emulate numpad because it knocks out other hotkeys like selection mode(1, 2, 3) in edit mode. I’d recommend using one of the other 6 methods.

1. The view pie menu is the tilde key(to the left of the 1 on the top row) the real power of this is hold the tilde key down move mouse until your option is highlighted and released the key. As you build muscle memory this will get faster.
2. Alt+Middle mouse drag. By default this is relative to your position. For example if you’re in front view dragging right goes to left view left goes to right, down goes to top, and up goes to bottom. You can change this to absolute in preferences->keymap->alt Middle mouse drag. This matches the directions of the view pie menu.
3. Navigation Gizmo - the big axis on the right side of the viewport. Each point on the axis has a circle. 3 with letters(x, y, z) and 3 without. Front view is the green without the y. Back is green with y. Red with x is right side. Red without is left side. Blue with z is top. Blue without is bottom.
4. The view menu which has already been mentioned
5. Thru addon. The 3d viewport navigation addon adds buttons to the n-panel->view tab->3D Nav panel that can be used to switch views.
6. Thru addin. The 3D viewport pie menu addon has a numpad view pie menu(I believe the hotkey is alt+q but not totally sure you can expand it after you turn it on and see all the pie menus).

Related note: Ctrl+alt+q toggle quad view.

[Dwayne]

Sorry for got to mention alt+ middle mouse drag doesn’t have a camera view. Gizmo just click the camera icon.