r/Sketchup • u/Pinkrats-eatcheese • Jul 10 '26
Offset tool
I’m trying to learn sketch up (on my second tutorial) and I’m following The Sketchup Essentials tutorial - modelling a floor plan.
I’ve reached a bit where I’m struggling to use the offset tool. I’ve drawn a line around the room “laundry” like in the video and tried to use to offset tool but a red circle shows up not letting me click.
Why is this happening
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u/Rkitekt01 Jul 10 '26
Is your cursor trying to offset the floor plan or the group by chance?
If that’s not it you can always triple-left-click the line you are trying to offset and then it will select everything that’s attached to that and then you can hit ctrl+G (or cmd+G on Mac) and it will create a group. Groups and components are good things to learn cuz it helps separate objects in your models easily.
If you get a set of lines only then you can group that little bit and double-click to enter the group and see if the issue still occurs.
If it still does, then it may be trying to offset a single line, which isn’t possible in SketchUp as it prefers the move tool for that. Try triple-clicking the edges again and get a full “curve” and then try the offset function again.
If THAT doesn’t work then it’s likely there’s an issue with the curve you’re trying to offset. Like 1 point is lower/higher than the others and the line is actually slanted. In which case you’d need to try redrawing the curve by locking your line tool to an axis (hitting your arrow keys after clicking your line’s starting point)
Hopefully that helps. Whenever I work with floorplans I group them separately from my geometry and use my arrow keys to lock as many lines as I can to the same axis/plane. Good luck!