SynapseDirect

Synapse is very powerful in that it allows many easy customizations of items such as Scripts, Requests, Letters, Invoices.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to customize your prescriptions.

Once you understand the (1) variables, (2) visible text, and (3) locations... it becomes quite easy !

This is what the prescription looks like when it is printed.

Here is the text in the >Custom>PostScript> Tab for creating this prescription

pagesize A4
font Times-BoldItalic 30
linewidth 1
color (blue)
at 190x750 "Dr. Imthe Demodoc, MD"
color (black)
font Times-Roman 12
newpath at 75x725 line1
at 75x715 line2
at 75x705 line3
at 440x725 "Ph: "
at 460x725 ph
at 440x710 "Fx: "
at 460x710 fx
at 75x680 "Date:"  font Times-Bold at 105x680 today
font Times-Roman 14
at 75x655 patient-table
at 360x660 "Dob:" at 400x660 dob
newpath at 75x740 line 530x740
newpath at 75x700 line 530x700
font Times-Roman 12
at 75x580 prescription 30 60 250x600
font Times-Roman 12
at 140x72 "Signature:"
at 210x72 line 380x72
at 390x72 "Registration: "
at 455x72 medical-registration
at 400x150 "Generic Substitution Permitted"
showpage 

Custom/PostScript

A template called "A4 script generic" which is below:

pagesize A4
font Times-BoldItalic 30
linewidth 1
at 190x750 My-Name
color (black)
font Times-Roman 12
newpath at 75x725 line1
at 75x715 line2
at 75x705 line3
at 440x725 "Reg: "
at 465x725 medical-registration
at 445x715 "Ph: "
at 465x715 ph
at 445x705 "Fx: "
at 465x705 fx
at 75x680 "Date:"  font Times-Bold at 105x680 today
font Times-Roman 14
at 75x655 patient-table
at 360x660 "Dob:" at 400x660 dob
newpath at 75x740 line 530x740
newpath at 75x700 line 530x700
font Times-Roman 12
at 75x570 prescription 30 60 250x600
font Times-Roman 12
at 140x72 "Signature:"
at 210x72 line 380x72
at 400x150 "Generic Substitution Permitted"
at 400x120 "Generic Substitution Not Permitted"
showpage
           

The "at nxn" tells the printer where to place the following item on the page. The item can be a keyword such as "My-name", or "patient-table" which takes information from the database or configuration settings.  Or, it can be text as long as there is a font directive before that.

So, lets go thru this template line by line

pagesize A4

Set the pagesize to A4.  Can be letter, or A5.

font Times-BoldItalic 30

Use the PostScript font, Times-BoldItalic in a 30 point size for the heading

linewidth 1

Use a linewidth of 1 point for any lines we draw.  We are going to draw 3 lines in this template later on.

at 190x750 My-Name

On the page measured from the bottom left, place My-name at 190x750 points where there are 72 points per inch. My-name is set up in Settings.

color (black)

Use the color black for any printing until we change the color. Note the ( ).

font Times-Roman 12

Change the font to Times-Roman at 12 point size 

newpath at 75x725 line1

Start a newpath ( ie. we've finished with the text now ), and at 75x725 place the text corresponding to Line1 of the doctors address in Settings.

at 75x715 line2
at 75x705 line3

Print Line2 and Line3 of the doctors address

at 440x725 "Reg: "

At 440x725 put the text "Reg: " still using the same font as last set. 

at 465x725 medical-registration

Now at 465x725 ( on the same y setting, but 25 points to the right of "Reg: " ) put the medical registration as taken from the doctor's Settings. 

at 445x715 "Ph: "
at 465x715 ph
at 445x705 "Fx: "
at 465x705 fx

Do similar for the phone and fax from Setttings

at 75x680 "Date:"  font Times-Bold at 105x680 today

Put the text "Date: " and then change to a bold font before printing today's date.

font Times-Roman 14

Change to a larger font size of 14 

at 75x655 patient-table

Now at 75x655, print the patient's address details as taken from the database. 

at 360x660 "Dob:" at 400x660 dob

Print the date of birth 

newpath at 75x740 line 530x740
newpath at 75x700 line 530x700

Draw a couple of parallel lines across the page 75x740 to 530x740, and 75x700 to 530x700

font Times-Roman 12

Change to a 12 point font

at 75x570 prescription 30 60 250x600

Print the prescription at 75x570. The 30x60 specifies the lowest point on the page it can print.  If it goes beyond that, start a new column at 250x600 

font Times-Roman 12

Reduce the font to point 12 

at 140x72 "Signature:"

More text

at 210x72 line 380x72

Draw another line from 210x72 to 380x72 where we can sign our name

at 400x150 "Generic Substitution Permitted"
at 400x120 "Generic Substitution Not Permitted"

More text on the page 

showpage

Finished .  Tell the printer to print it out.

Note:

Line1, Line2, Line3 correspond to the Lines in the >Settings> Tab.

as seen below 

By my calculations,

On a A4 paper, with font size = 12, you can have 28 characters as a maximum for the drug name and your prescription allows a maximum of 27 drugs per prescription page.

Graham: Is there anyway to include images yet ?  I want my prescriptions to look pretty.

Which Postscript is being used in Synpase ?

( I want to look up the documentation ) 

Where you want a PostScript image to appear, use the \includegraphics command, possibly with scaling or rotation options, e.g.,

  \includegraphics{myfig.eps}
  \includegraphics[width=60mm]{myfig.eps}
  \includegraphics[height=60mm]{myfig.eps}
  \includegraphics[scale=0.75]{myfig.eps}
  \includegraphics[angle=45,width=52mm]{myfig.eps} 

Will those work ?

If your image is in eps format, I may be able to do something about accommodating images.

what postscript ?

what are the commands ?

None at present, but if you have an EPS image, I can look at implementing the appropriate support for printing them.

what language is this ?  is this a dialect you made up ?

I can make .eps files easily. 

Yes, it's one of many domain specific languages I have implemented Synapse.

It tries to be as close as possible to PostScript.

Please email me the EPS file, and where you want it on the page .. and I'll see what I can do.

Perhaps send me a mockup of what the page is supposed to look like.

Just confirming that adding this code after the pagesize command line

at 72x700 eps %logo.eps

where logo.eps is the name of an EPS file, places an image on the page of the superbill as well.

the syntax is

at nxn eps %path-to-filename

so, this is also correct

at 100x600 eps %/c/synapse/images/mywatermark.eps

where the file is in c:\synapse\images\mywatermark.eps
 

On my hard drive in the c:\texmf directory,  I found a sample eps file called demofig.eps which is a tiny cat sketch.

The file header is this :

%!PS-Adobe-2.0 EPSF-2.0
%%BoundingBox: 44 525 80 559
%%Creator: COREL DRAW
%%Title: CAT.TMP
%%CreationDate: Sat Jan 18 17:29:05 1992

So, the bounding box specifies that the image is to be placed on the page in the box described by the two corners 44x525 and 80x559

I need to change my implementation so that it alters the origin of the bounding box so that it goes where we want the image, as otherwise it will appear on the page at the same place each time as described in the eps file.

BTW, you could use an eps file to put your signature on the prescription.