Printing on the prescription pad you already use

The sheet you already pay the press for

Doctors do not switch pads because a website prefers its own letterhead. The press already has the block. The patient already recognises the colour. softhubd takes that file. Upload the PDF or the photo, choose A4, A5, or the pad size, and set the four margins plus the blank edge in millimetres. The writing should start below the name and clear of the logo. You see that in the preview before anyone else sees it on paper. Measure once for that chamber. The next visit uses the same numbers.

A crooked photo of the pad is still your pad. If the scan is tilted, fix the scan. The software places your text in the box you defined. It does not redesign the artwork. If the file is the real PDF from the press, the print is usually cleaner than a phone photo. Both are accepted. The point is that the page the patient holds still looks like the page they held last year.

Signature, seal, and the clear background

The footer is where the page becomes yours. A signature and a seal can be PNG or JPEG. If the seal was exported with a clear background, it stays clear. A white box around the seal is a file problem, not a setting you toggle later. Drag the image on the preview until it sits where your hand signs, or type the position in millimetres if you would rather not guess with a finger. Once it is right, leave it. You should not be placing the seal between patients.

The same chamber keeps that placement. A different chamber keeps a different seal if the evening paper needs one. They do not swap when you change rooms, unless you never uploaded a second file and you are still printing on the first pad. Pick the chamber first. Then look at the preview. Then print.

What the patient should not see on that paper

Group, company, and price are visible in search so you can tell two similar rows apart. They stay off the pad unless that chamber turns them on. The default is off. A parent does not need the trade price in the corner of a child’s prescription, and a pharmacy does not need your search notes. The mobile number is off the paper for the same reason. It will be photographed. It does not need to travel.

The dose, the days, the tests, and the advice are what the paper is for. Write them in the language the pharmacy reads. If a medicine is missing from the catalogue, type the name on. It prints as you typed it, and it is kept for next time. A fever of 100 or more may mention Paracetamol as a search. It will not drop the bottle onto the page. You add it, and you write the dose.

When the paper cannot leave with them

Make a JPG or a PDF of the same laid-out page. On a phone, the share sheet puts that file into WhatsApp. On a computer, the file downloads and you attach it. The software does not send the chat. The layout is still your pad, not a plain text message that loses the seal. If they come back next month, the visit ID opens the writing. The file in their phone is a copy of that day, not the record you edit later.

Try the upload on the demo. Two prescriptions are free, and the print is live, so you can see whether your real PDF sits correctly before you talk about a monthly pack. Basic, Standard, and Premium change how many chambers and how many saved prescriptions you get. They do not change the fact that the pad is yours.

The first print is a test, not a patient

Use a blank hour. Upload the PDF. Print one page with a fake name and a short complaint. Hold it against the pad you already use. If the writing sits on the logo, add millimetres at the top and print again. If the seal covers the last medicine, drag it down. Do this before a real patient is involved. The demo’s two free prescriptions are enough for that experiment, and the live print is the point of them. A screenshot of the preview is not the same as paper from your printer. Paper shows whether the press PDF and your printer agree.

A phone photo of the pad can work, but the edges lie. A PDF from the press is usually straighter. If you only have a photo, crop it before you upload, so the software is not guessing where the paper ends. The text box is yours to define. The artwork is not redrawn inside softhubd.

When the press sends a new block

Letterheads change. A new degree, a new address, a new colour. Replace the file on that chamber. You do not create a second chamber just because the PDF changed, unless you truly sit in a second room. Margins may need a small nudge after the new file, because the header grew. Check the seal. A new design sometimes leaves less room in the footer, and a seal that was fine last year now sits on the advice. Five quiet minutes fix this. A week of crooked prints does not.

Each chamber stores its own file, so updating the morning PDF does not replace the evening one. That is the same rule as the rest of the pad: rooms do not share paper unless you uploaded the same file twice on purpose.

What never belongs on the sheet

The search price, the company, and the group are for the moment you pick a row. They are not for the sheet, unless you turn them on in that chamber. The mobile number is not for the sheet. A clear seal is for the sheet, and a white box around it means the file was not transparent. Fix the file. Do not draw a white rectangle and call it a setting. Patients notice the rectangle. They rarely notice a seal that sits cleanly on the paper colour.

After the test print looks like your old pad, stop adjusting. The next fifty patients should meet the same margins. Fiddling during a visit is how the eleventh patient gets a different header from the tenth. Set it, leave it, and only come back when the press changes the art.

Leave the artwork alone

You already paid a press to design the pad. softhubd is not a second designer. It will not offer a gallery of templates that replace your name with a generic clinic. Upload what you have. If the file is ugly, that ugliness was there last year too, and patients already accept it. Fixing it is a conversation with the press, then a new upload. It is not a Saturday spent inside a design tool you will not remember next month.

After the test print matches, write the millimetres down in the chamber settings and stop. Staff should not “improve” the margin between patients. One shared pad file per chamber, one seal, one quiet correction when the press sends a new PDF. That is the whole maintenance. The two free demo prescriptions are enough to prove the file works. A monthly pack does not include a redesign.

Stop when the paper matches last year

The goal is recognition, not a new design. When the test page looks like the pad patients already know, save the margins and do not touch them again until the press changes the file. A monthly fee does not include a redesign, and it should not be spent hunting one.