Hi all,

I'm about 2 weeks into using AC in my new practice and overall loving it. Public thanks to Adam up in Maine, who has been a big help behind the scenes.

I took his advice and installed the full version of Adobe Acrobat today, so I can sign scripts and then fax em. I figured I didn't need Acrobat reader anymore, so I deleted it.

Once I did that, AC would no longer open PDF files from within AC; I could designate Acrobat as my default program for opening PDF files generally, but for example when I try to open an imported lab, I get a message that "this document type cannot be opened from within amazing charts" or some such thing.

I had a movie date with the wife (Wall-E) and didn't have time to do any more than a system restore before we left, putting me back to just Acrobat reader for now. So, those of you who use the full version of Acrobat, what am I missing? Does AC need to be told there's a new program, i.e., the full version of Acrobat, when one upgrades from just the free reader program? I couldn't find any obvious way to do that.

Thanks - Jim in New Orleans

Jim,

The same thing happened to me and I have not yet had time to try and fix it. So, for now, I simply right click on the imported item I wish to view and then click "open in the default program".

Leslie

Leslie,

Did you delete Adobe reader when you installed Acrobat, as I did? It seems, at least in my case, that AC likes having it around somehow. I uninstalled Adobe Acrobat 9 (the one I bought), ran a repair utility with the uninstaller on Adobe Reader 8, then reinstalled Acrobat.

Now, AC opens PDF's for viewing as before and if I right-click on "open with default program" if opens the PDF in Acrobat.

Same here. I wish it would default to Acrobat but I don't know how to get it to do that. Not a huge problem although it is different on different machines as I don;t have Acrobat on each one. So, just have to remember which ones to right-click.

Leslie

@Ezjim (or anyone)So, how are you using Acrobat to sign scripts?

Currently, I'm printing scripts on plain paper (no problems so far here in Louisiana...) and still hand-signing them.

I now use acrobat to do all of my refills, though - we ask patients who call in for refills to instead have their pharmacy fax us a request. It gets dumped onto my desktop as a PDF and then I use acrobat to sign and fax back. Takes my nurse out of the loop completely, so she can concentrate on importing scanned stuff

Jim

Jim,

Sounds like you installed the Acrobat Reader, then installed Acrobat "proper", then removed Reader? What probably happened was when you removed Reader, it also removed the file association of "pdf" files. You can either just re-install Acrobat "proper" again or associate "pdf" to Acrobat.

To perform the latter, assuming that you have Win XP, you open the "Control panel", open "Folder Options", click on the "File Types" tab, scroll down and select "PDF" extensions and click the button "Change" and then select "Adobe Acrobat" instead of "Abobe Reader".

That should solve the issue with the file association.

Has this worked for anyone yet? AC opening a window containing the Adobe Acrobat software? I understand this would allow staff to write notes directly on labs and misc. faxes.

I'm not sure why, but I don't expect it to work. I downloaded a PDF writer and editor that Joseph suggested. It is nice, but AC won't open the window within itself. I expect this is related to being unable to open OpenOffice.org and its spreadsheet program in AC.

Does anyone know what AC is written in?

Last question first: AC is written in Visual Basic 5/6? There's been "requests" to re-write it in .Net but that's been shot down. Understood the reasons but I'm not the PM of the project so I have no say.

I highly suspect the panel that the images/files displayed is a webpage panel. Any application that supports a file to be opened in a web browser (such as Reader, MS Word) should not have any significant issues... pretty good way to support file formats actually so the Dev doesn't have to write a whole bunch of extra code to support new formats.

You can always right click on the file and "open with default applicaton" as the other alternative. Annoying but works.

I recently heard from someone at AC that they are using vb6 as well as .Net and php.

That is very interesting and your intuition seems to be right. If you import an html file it will generate a webpage. It won't be correct because it can't grab files from the internet but otherwise. This also explains why opening OpenOffice files prompts you to open or save them.

I guess if there were a way to view OpenOffice on IE then you could view files in AC. It certainly is a clever solution.