Skills
A skill is a procedure Dlubal CALC follows the same way every time. Where a plain question gets you an answer shaped by how you asked it, a skill gets you the same steps, the same checks and the same output on Monday as on Friday.
Using one
Type / in the message box and pick from the list, or type the command directly:
/steel-design IPE 300, span 6 m, S235, UDL 12 kN/m
The list is searchable, so / followed by a word narrows it. A skill without arguments
asks you for what it needs rather than guessing.
Ready-made calculation tasks
The public skills Dlubal publishes are listed under Calculators: steel and concrete members to Eurocode, a footing check to EC 7, an AISC 360 beam and more. Each entry opens a page with a worked example, the inputs it needs, its scope and limitations, and a short form. Calculate these values in CALC starts the task with what you entered.
Example: you need a braced steel column to EN 1993-1-1. Open Steel column | EC 3 under Calculators, check its limits (no biaxial bending, no class 4 sections), fill the form and start it from there instead of describing the check from scratch. The list grows over time, so check it before you write a skill of your own.
When a skill is worth it
A skill pays off when the procedure repeats and the wording should not vary: an office standard for a member check, a fixed report structure, a check sequence a reviewer expects in a particular order.
If two colleagues would answer the same question with two different sets of steps, that is the case a skill fixes. If a single sentence in a chat already gets it right, you do not need one.
Personal skills from Starter
From the Starter plan upward, you can create and use your own skills. Open the relevant session's menu and choose Save as Skill. CALC creates a personal draft and opens it in your Skills library.
Review the draft's name, instructions, inputs and sources before using it for further tasks. The skill belongs to your signed-in account. After reviewing it, set its status to Published to use it in chat. It remains your personal skill and is not shared with other accounts by this status change.
Creation costs 3 credits. Usage incurs the usual chat and tool costs for the task. Additional tools retain their own plan requirements. On Free, the menu item shows that Starter is required.
For a reusable request without a skill, choose Save as Prompt. Personal prompts have their own plan requirements.
Where to go next
- Your first calculation for the plain-question path.
- Reports for turning the output into a document.
- Plans and credits for chat and tool costs.