Printing

Ghostscript

Ghostscript is a GPL licensed software that allows you to create PDF documents locally, and to print PostScript documents to your Windows printer even when you don't have a PostScript printer.  It is installed automatically as part of the Synapse client installer. 

You need to make sure Ghostscript is installed correctly and in the system path.  You can test the path by opening a command shell and typing gswin32c and see what happens.  If the Ghostscript interpreter does not come up, then you have either not installed Ghostscript, or it is not in the system path.

Print Letter Dialog

Let's go through all the options in the print dialog as pictured above to discuss how it all works.

At the very top is a field that shows the current practice address which is useful if you practise from different locations, and want your letters to reflect the current location.  If you wish to change to a different location, you will need to select this first in Settings/User.

Next is the list of correspondents associated with this patient.  By default, the letter is addressed to the person assigned as the family practitioner for the patient ie. from the specialist's point of view.  If you wish to change the addressee, then click on the "Clear" button, and then select another addressee from the table.  If you want to send the letter to the patient instead, then check the "To Patient" checkbox.

Note the format for the address is set in Settings/User/Letters templates. 

Now, you can decide whether you want a tickler generated for a particular letter.  So, if you were referring to a consultant, and want to track that referral, then check the "Track?" checkbox and assign a priority.

The "Add  Contact Details" button appends the patient's telephone numbers to the address field.

The "Copy to patient?" checkbox adds the patient to the list of ccs.

You can add others to the Ccs list by clicking on the names in the Correspondents list.

"Date Today?" when checked will use today on the letter instead of the date of the consult.

Below this ( in Windows version ) are two tabs. The MS Word tab reflects settings for exporting to MS Word.  You can set the font size, paper size and whether to include the diagnoses and medications list.

In the first tab, you see first the network address of your PostScript printer.  So, if you have more than one PostScript printer, you can select another one here by editing the IP address.  If the printer is actually a parallel printer like the older HP Laserjets, and attached directly to your PC, then the Lpt1: box should be checked.

The table below this lists all the patient and letter templates available as well as the active template.  You can switch templates here ( eg. if your letter uses 11 pt font and doesn't fit on one page, you can switch to using a 10 pt font template ) though this selection is not saved between sessions.

Finally we have four buttons that do the actual printing.