Drop Caps

Drop Caps are areas of thickened slab in the vicinity of columns. The slab properties associated with the Drop Cap must be specified in the PropTable – Decking command. The total thickness, not the additional thickness below the slab, should be entered for the Concrete Slab Thickness value.

Drop Caps can be assigned to columns using the Layout – Slab – Deck Assign command. When the Two-way option is selected for Slab Action, an option to specify Drop Caps is enabled. They can be specified at any angle (relative to the global X-axis), and can be either square or rectangular. Rectangular Drop Caps do not need to be symmetric. When all of the pertinent data is entered, the Add Drop Cap – Single and Add Drop Cap – Fence commands are enabled. Clicking on a column or fencing a group of columns causes a drop cap to be assigned to the column or columns.

Drop Caps are a special form of deck polygons described in Deck Assignment . The same capabilities to change, delete and show are available for Drop Caps as are available for regular deck polygons. They differ from regular deck polygons, though, in the following ways:

A Drop Cap is associated with a specific column. If the column is moved, the Drop Cap moves with it; if the column is deleted, the Drop Cap is deleted.
f a deck polygon is laid over a deck polygon, the polygon laid down last takes precedence and replaces the previous polygon, but if a deck polygon is laid over a Drop Cap, the Drop Cap persists, it is not replaced.

Note that because the commands for regular deck polygons are also available for Drop Caps, Drop Caps of virtually any shape or configuration can be modeled by first adding it as a square or rectangle and then by using the Change Polygon command to move, add and merge vertices.