Synapse client 210 et seq have an option to produce PDFs of most of the documents you print, and stores them as a record. However, it does appear that you need a fairly modern PC/server for this to work smoothly. I was running windows 2003 as a vmware image on a old Dell server ( dual Xeon 1Ghz ie. Pentium III era ) and that seemed to cause some errors with the client dropping the connection. So, generally Synapse doesn't need too fast a PC as the server but it may need it when you're creating PDFs on the server.
More testing suggests that server based pdf creation may not be viable afterall. Timing issues creep in with 2 pages of full text. It may be better to create the pdfs locally, and then upload the pdf to the server for storage.
I actually like server based pdf. Is the server created pdf stored permanently or is it a temporary file? Uploading pdf to the server would be redundant work.
It's permanent ... so in a consult, you can look at the print history and bring up all the pdfs for that patient. It's not redundant at all. The idea is to create a permanent image record.
Where is the print history? If the consult is modified later and printed again, print history willl save two versions of PDF? But if server PDF is already created, this would be redundant - so far, I haven't had problems with server PDF
The print history is available from the list of functions in the consult editor. And yes, if you print it again, with changes, there will be a new pdf version saved. Which is the point. I get problems with two full pages of text .. the synapse client hangs. But more likely your server is faster than mine. I'm using a virtual server, whereas admittedly when I was using a normal server I did not have this problem. Try pasting about 5 pages of text together for a demo patient and see if pdf creation works for you or not ....
Less than 2 pages works fine but 5 pages killed the client [] Hope this is fixable. I do like the fact the printout is saved on the server automatically and can be retrieved by secretaries for later use.
The point is that currently the client pushes the postscript code to the server. The server then generates the pdf and sends it back to the client. It then deletes the postscript code. Now, interestingly, the postscript is often larger than 5kbs, but the pdfs created are only about 5kbs if there are no images. So, it actually would be more efficient for the client to create the pdf, and send it to the server for storage. This cuts the network traffic down by 50%, but does mean each client needs to have ghostscript installed.
Well, I was thinking that we have to manually add the PDF in results tab. But if I can print in my client using ghostcript and the generated PDF can be uploaded to server automatically for storage under print history, other client will only need to access the print history for a reprint. The end result will be the same. I would say give this a try? BTW, my postcript preview screen still shows overlapping text althought the printout is fine, is this still caused by my template?
Could be. The preview only works well for the first page, so it may show overlapping text from the second page .. but not from the first page.
The latest client/server R211B17/R81B4 now implements this but only for consults. All other PDF documents such as prescriptions and investigations are server generated as they are only one page documents, and do not have the timing issues.
