Importing and exporting libraries in Easy PDF Search

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in Easy PDF Search 6.5, we added the functionality  to export and import your category and library structure.  Some users wanted to share their library structures with other users, and there was no easy way to do that previously.

To export your library configuration settings, select the Export libraries configuration item from the Tools menu.

Then select a file to store the configuration in.  You can now share the file with another user.  To import the configuration, select the Import libraries configuration item from the Tools menu.

Then select the file you exported earlier.  Easy PDF Search will then import the category and library structure from the file.

Note that the existing library configuration will be replaced by this new configuration.

Searching the search results in Easy PDF Search

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We recently had a user ask if it was possible to perform a search on the files returned by the search results in Easy PDF Search.  This isn’t possible for now.  There is however a workaround.

First, you need to copy the files returned by the initial search into another folder.  To do this, right click in the search results area to bring up the context menu, then select the Copy/move files to another folder… item.

In the subsequent window, enter the folder to copy the files to, then click on the Copy button.

Now we’ll need to create a library that references that folder.

Now all we need to do is select that library when we want to perform a search.

Patient status in Easy DICOM Viewer

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Easy DICOM Viewer 4.7 lets you define statuses for each series of images.  A series can have an unread, reading, or completed status, as indicated by the colored circles.

In this way, you can easily identify images that require your attention.  You can easily filter the images in the patient history list by their status using the status filter:

You change the status of the series’ images when you open the series.  In the Patient information tab. select the status you want to apply to the series:

Download a 14-day trial of Easy DICOM Viewer now, and see how you can easily identify which images require your attention.

Easy DICOM Viewer is a collaborative effort between LISIT, Co., Ltd. and Yohz Software.  To learn more about Easy DICOM Viewer or download a trial, please use this link.  If you are in Japan, please use this link instead.

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Improved redaction in Easy DICOM Viewer

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In Easy DICOM Viewer 4.8, redacting an image and saving the redacted DICOM file now preserves the HU values in the image.

DICOM images may sometimes contain patient data burned into the image e.g.

Easy DICOM Viewer lets you redact areas of the image you want to keep private using the redaction function.  For example, say we want to hide the details that indicate the patient’s birth date:

You can then export the DICOM image with the redaction applied.

The modified image will preserve the original HU values and DICOM tags where possible.  Note that during the export process, you can also choose to anonymize the DICOM tags.

Download a 14-day trial of Easy DICOM Viewer now and experience how easy it is to redact your images and anonymize the DICOM tags.

Easy DICOM Viewer is a collaborative effort between LISIT, Co., Ltd. and Yohz Software.  To learn more about Easy DICOM Viewer or download a trial, please use this link.  If you are in Japan, please use this link instead.

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Easy PDF Search color schemes

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In Easy PDF Search 6.2, users can now change the color schemes to one of 3 options.  There is the default light color scheme:

and 2 additional ‘darker’ schemes i.e. a dark scheme

and a gray scheme.

This was added based on user feedback, who pointed out that using Easy PDF Search for long periods of time on a large monitor using the default light color scheme caused eye discomfort.

To change the color scheme, select the Color scheme item from the main menu:

and then select the color scheme you want to use.

Download a 14-day trial of Easy PDF Search now and experience a faster way to search your PDF collection.

Converting Micro-CT TIFF images to DICOM files

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We recently had a user who needed to convert Micro-CT scans consisting of TIFF images to DICOM files.  Easy DICOM Viewer could already convert most graphic files to DICOM, so we thought it would not be a problem.  Turned out to be a big problem.

Usability

First up was the usability issue.  Micro-CT scans are high-resolution images, running into hundreds to thousands of files.  In the original conversion screen, you had to drag the images you wanted to convert onto the DICOM image frames window.

This worked fine if you only had less than a hundred images or so, or when you needed to combine images from different folders.  However, for Micro-CT images, having to show a preview for hundreds or thousands of images was simply not feasible.  Thus, we removed the need to have to display the images in the frames window.  You can now start the conversion in the image browser window itself.

In addition, the image browser now lists the files by file names by default, which makes this screen more responsive.  You can of course still toggle between thumbnails and file names modes.

Also, if you now dropped a large number of files on to the DICOM image frames window, Easy DICOM Viewer will ask you to confirm that you want to proceed with the action.

With all the above changes, you can now easily convert Micro-CT scans into DICOM images very much faster compared to the previous version of Easy DICOM Viewer.

DICOM image properties

The main change here was to add the compression options for the converted DICOM images.  This allowed the user to generate smaller DICOM files, depending on their needs.

Other changes we made was to easily resize images by percentage, and also to convert the images to 16-bit grayscale.

With all the above improvements, you can now easily convert Micro-CT TIFF images to a single, smaller DICOM file.  Download a 14-day trial of Easy DICOM Viewer now and give it a try.

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Multi-user support in Easy PDF Search

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Easy PDF Search 5.3 (EPS) now has limited support for multi-user access.  Users running EPS on different computers can now access the same EPS database to search their indexed files.

There are limitations as to the multi-user support.  EPS uses SQLite as the underlying database to store the indexed words.  SQLite is a file-based database.  Unlike a client-server database (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, etc), a file-based database usually needs to transfer all or most of its content to the application using it.  This means that it may not be feasible to run EPS against a 100 GB database, as the users’ computers would be spending a lot of time reading the large file over the network.

Setting up Easy PDF Search for multi-user access

EPS version

Ensure that you are using EPS 5.3 or newer.  You can check the version you have by selecting the Help > About item on the main menu.

In the About screen, the version number is displayed.

It is important that all users accessing the same database be on version 5.3 or newer.

Database file location

The database file needs to be stored on a network share.  You will then need to change the EPS  database settings to point to that network share.  To do that, click on the File > Settings item on the main menu.

Enter the network share path.

PDF files path

To open the PDF files in the search results, each user needs to be able to access the PDF files.  This means that the paths in the library needs to be network shares e.g.

Presently, the path explorer is unable to browse network shares, so you will need to enter the network share manually in the path area.

Performance

By default, every time you perform a search, EPS first scans for new PDF files and index them.  In a multi-user scenario, this is inefficient.

You should designate a single user to update the index for new files.  Other users should use any of the other options that skip the indexing process:

  • Search only indexed files
    EPS will scan the selected libraries’ folders for PDF files, and only return results from files that have been indexed.  New or updated files are not indexed.
  • Search index only (selected libraries)
    EPS will search all indexed files in folders used by the selected libraries.
  • Search index only
    EPS will search all indexed files.

Points to note

We do not expect this multi-user access implementation to support a client-server experience.  It will probably work for database files of a modest size, supporting a small number of users.  The exact numbers will vary, depending on the network infrastructure and machine specifications in use.

If you discover any bugs or have any suggestions to improve EPS, please drop us a line at support@yohz.com.

You can download the latest version of Easy PDF Search using this link.

Searching PDF annotations

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In Easy PDF Explorer 3, we added the option to also search annotations in addition to page content.  To search annotations, select the annotations option in the Find Text window.

In the search results, the number of times the word/phrase appears on a page is displayed e.g.

In the first PDF file, the word aperture was found on pages 5, 7, 9.  On page 5, the word was found 3 times on the page, and twice in annotations.  On pages 7 and 9, the word was found twice in annotations in those pages.

Download a 14-day trial of Easy PDF Explorer now and start experiencing an easier way to work with your PDF files.

Mouse and keyboard interactions in Easy PDF Explorer 3

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In Easy PDF Explorer 3, you can now perform more actions on your search results using the mouse and keyboard.

Selecting text

To select text on your PDF page, click and drag the mouse over the text you want to select.  The text will be highlighted and automatically copied to the clipboard.  You do not need to press CONTROL-C.

To select a single word, double click on the word.

Zooming

Pressing the CONTROL key and scrolling the mouse wheel zooms in and out of the current page.  The zoom factor is determined by the currently selected item in the zoom options on the toolbar.

Panning

In addition to using the horizontal and vertical scrollbars to pan around the page, you can use the mouse wheel to scroll the vertical scrollbar, and SHIFT + mouse wheel to scroll the horizontal scrollbar.

Navigating the search results and pages

Say we have the above search results, and Easy PDF Explorer is displaying page 5.

Pressing the a key will open page 3, which is the previous page in the search result.

Pressing the z key will open page 7, which is the next page in the search result.

Pressing the A key will open page 4, which is the previous page in the file.

Pressing the Z key will open page 6, which is the next page in the file.

Note that the A and Z shortcuts only work when the CAPS LOCK key is active.  They will not work if used with the SHIFT key.

With the above mouse and keyboard interactions, you can now navigate and select text on your PDF pages with minimal mouse movements.

Download a 14-day trial of Easy PDF Explorer now and start experiencing an easier way to work with your PDF files.

Presenter mode in Easy DICOM Viewer

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In Easy DICOM Viewer 4.1, we introduced a presenter mode to help you share images in presentations and zoom meetings while maintaining confidentiality of your images.

Anonymized tag values

In presenter mode,  sensitive tag values are automatically anonymized.  For e.g. in the image list, you would usually see the patient name:

In presenter mode, this is replaced by a generic label:

In the image itself, information profiles like these:

are replaced with anonymized values:

In the tags listing, these values are also anonymized.

Highlighted cursor position

In presenter mode, the cursor position is highlighted so that your audience can track your cursor position easily.

Customizing presenter mode

You can customize the presenter mode settings to fit your requirements.  For e.g. you may want to anonymize additional tags, or customize the appearance of the cursor highlight.

Setting the presenter mode

Turn presenter mode on by selecting the Presenter mode option from the Application item on the tool bar.

Summary

Easy DICOM Viewer‘s presenter mode allows you to present/screen share images easily without worrying about exposing confidential information.  Your images are unchanged – only the displayed values are modified.  This is a huge time saving over the previous practice where you had to anonymize the tag values before using them in any presentations.

Download a 14-day trial of Easy DICOM Viewer now and experience how the presenter mode makes it easy to display DICOM images without exposing any confidential information.

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