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fax from your PC |
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| By Kevin Savetz |
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(2/20/02) |
Even with the worldwide prevalence of Internet-connected computers, paper shows no signs of going away. Fortunately, faxing lets you send paper documents at Internet speeds. Faxing is nothing new; we were all familiar with the term long before Internet entered the communal dialogue, and fax technology was developed more than 100 years before the Internet.
With the right software, you can turn your PC into a fax machine. You'll be able to send and receive faxes from your computer and even perform tasks that aren't possible with a traditional fax machine.
Got a fax modem?
If you have a fax-capable modem in your computer--most analog modems include fax capability--all you need is fax software to turn your PC into a fax machine. Using a fax modem lets you send formatted documents directly from your computer. Since it uses your regular phone line, any long-distance charges will appear on your phone bill. If you also use that modem for your Internet connection, you won't be able to send faxes when you are online. To receive faxes, the computer must be on and the phone line must be free.
FaxWizard 2000, a $49.95 shareware program, is one popular software choice. It installs a printer driver that fools your PC into believing the fax modem is a printer, and thus lets you use any application's print function to send a fax. After you install the program and reboot your PC, open a document in any application (for instance, a word processor file) and use its print function. In the printer selection window, choose Fax Driver.
The FaxWizard window will appear. First, click the Sender button and enter your contact information, then click the Recipient button and enter contact information for the person you'll be sending the fax to. Choose Send Fax from the Fax menu. The first time you send a fax, the program will ask for additional information, including your local area code, long-distance dialing code, and modem configuration details.
FaxWizard's basic operation is straightforward, but it offers plenty of other features. Choose Preferences from the Options menu to configure the header--the line of info that appears at the top of every faxed page. If you want to fax a document that isn't a file on the computer, choose Scan from FaxWizard's File menu. The program will make an image from a paper document on your scanner, then fax that image. Choose Receive Fax from the Fax menu to put the program into receive mode to wait for an incoming fax.
Kevin Savetz, a frequent contributor to CNET Download.com, has been a freelance computer technology writer for 10 years.
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