Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Print Daily Batch?

I would like to print the daily batch of CMS1500's but I would like to do it in an electronic format such as XPS, TIFF, or PDF. My preferred would be XPS because of the small size of the output file. When I do this, though, it prompts me for a filename for each CMS1500 form. I would much rather have them all print into one document. Has anyone else had any luck in this area?

I mentioned in another post that I use PDF redirect, a free PDF writer that will merge multiple PDF documents into one.

I have done batch printings of HCFAs into this creating one document.

Can't help you with the other formats.

Paul,

With today's GBs costing practically pennies, why are you worried about the size of the output file. There is a reason that probably over 90% of the users create PDFs as Wendell alludes to above. PDFs are, by far, the best file to use.

Well, we send them electronically to the billing office and although space is now usually an issue, they bill for many providers and have a very large intake per day of claim forms. We are sending them the .xps files because even if the space is cheap, it is their space and I would like to take up as little as possible. Also, I have always had a certain dislike for the pdf format. Mainly that it is not easily edited by most people. If I were to send them a picture file they could edit it in Paint, or a word or Excel file they could edit in OpenOffice. Easy and cheap and well known. I have never found a good free alternative for editing, marking up, or anything else with pdf.

I use pdfFactory Pro. It installs as a printer driver. As long as it's print window is open it will merge all docs printed to it.

That is the whole idea of PDFs.

I understand that one of the main ideas is to not be editable. I just wish if you wanted to mark on a file (i.e. a lab in AC) that it could be easily done without buying Adobe products.

Paul,

I don't keep up with all of the 3rd party PDF programs. I prefer to pay way too much for Adobe, lol.

But, there are many, and a lot of people on here use them, and I believe many of them can be marked up in a number of ways.

I could be wrong, though.

I have found some good free software for marking up the pdf's. I wish I could somehow use it with AC but even making it the default program for all pdf files Adobe Reader is still the program used by AC. The program I found was PDF-Xchange. The free product they offer has markup capability although their site doesn't mention it much. As for other editors, I had trouble finding something as easy to use as this software.

1. You should be able to take a PDF in Adobe Reader on the desktop (icon) and right click on it and choose to open with a certain program and choose yours. If you use properties, you can make that the default program.

2. Just delete you Adobe Reader. Doesn't your software allow you to view PDFs?

I tried number 1. I am about to try the second option you mentioned. Funny, I thought about it and then I got sidetracked and didn't have the thought again to try it.

** Just tried it. It did not work. Now the PDF-XChange is the default viewer for pdf files, as intended. When I open any pdf file it opens in PDF-XChange easily. However, the program won't open inside the AC window. It prompts me to open or save the file. If I click open it opens in a new window in that program. Maybe I need to mess with broswer extensions as that seems to be what is stopping it from opening in the same window.

Right click on the document in Imported Items on the left side and choose "Open In Native Application."

It worked, in that it opened the PDFX-Change application in a new window and opened the lab. I have tried messing with browser extensions but it did not help. It appears that if you want to open in an application other than Adobe you must use a new window. Oh well.

I am still confused. No matter what program you are using to run your PDF files, you have to open it in a different window. For me, the Acrobat reader is only for use when I only want to view PDF files and don't want to edit them or do anything fancy with them. For instance, I have the free Acrobat reader on my server so I can read directions for installs and stuff.

So, fine your favorite PDF application (there are tens and tens of them), uninstall everything else so there are no conflicts, and then edit away. Once they are imported, you can left click to see them in the viewing pane on the right and right click and choose open in native application. I think the options that Jon gives you such as Delete, Open, Sign off, Edit and Print is rather good.

I just meant that AC uses Adobe's software to allow viewing in the right pane without opening in a new window. I thought maybe I could use a different program in that pane but it didn't work. It would just be simpler if it did but I would never expect such a thing to be put in as it would be less than feasible to allow for any program of your choice to open in that window. Either that or the software I found just does not allow it.

I use pdf-xchange. You can make it open the pdf files in the browser window of AC. You just have to direct AC to use the browser plugin which is a standard IE plugin. This is what I did to make it work, very simple really. Open pdf xchange -> edit -> preferences -> file extensions. Click the button "Make default pdf browser" and check the box for "display pdf in browser." Click apply. Then turn off AC, restart and click on a pdf file in imports. I hope this helps.

If you need any more help go to pdf-xchange forum

I'm just a user, no financial incentives, fyi.

Gerardo

Wow, I never thought to look for something to that effect. I don't know why it did not occur to me. Thanks for that!