Are keyboard shortcuts specific to a model or template or can I assign them universally? Mine keep disappearing every time I start a new model.
They are not specific to the model. Once set they should remain set. Make sure you installed SketchUp correctly by right clicking on the downloaded installer and choosing run as administrator.
Keep in mind that you cannot assign keyboard shortcuts that are hardcoded by the operating system. If you do, those shortcuts will not stick. So on Windows this includes shortcuts like Ctrl+Z for Undo, Ctrl+A for Select All, Ctrl+C for Copy and so on.
In this case I assigned a key that was specfic to the Protractor tool but I don’t imagine that’s an issue right?
What keyboard shortcut did you select to use for the Protractor tool?
Did you install SketchUp as I wrote before?
If you have installed SketchUp incorrectly the changes to shortcuts are not remembered across sessions.
If you install it [or Repair it] by using ‘Run as administrator’ in the context-menu for the installer’s exe file in your Downloads folder then changes will be kept across sessions, but as @DaveR says remember that some shortcuts are ‘reserved’ for Windows commands using Ctrl+… - like Undo, Select-All, Copy and Paste etc, so you can’t re-purpose those…
Not sure if it could help, but the latest Microsoft Powertoys has a keyboard remapping app.
I think you can remap keys for different programs…