Faxing from your PC over broadband - how to?

[Dennis]

Hello,

I would like to send the occasional fax from my PC. I use Win XP Pro as the OS, and have MS Office Professional 2003 installed, as well as a Canon scanner and Canon Printer.

Do I need to purchase a separate fax software application, or fax modem, or does the OS or some other standard application have a (free) fax function that I have not yet stumbled upon?

Thanks!

Dennis

[acropolite]

Most Dialup modems have a print to fax driver and that is probably the easiest way to achieve faxing from your PC using your regular telephone line. If you simply wish to send a printable page and the recipient has an email address, Primo PDF is a freeware print to PDF utility and you can send a printable PDF file to the recipients email address that can be printed using acrobat. You can fax via broadband but you need to go with a (fax) service provider which will incur a fee.

[Dennis]

Thanks for the explanation Phil. The pieces of the fax jigsaw puzzle now fit.

Cheers

Dennis

[wasyoungonce]

Dennis, i'm new here but can help on this.

WINXP has built in fax system. If you are like me it is not usually installed. If it's not installed go to control panel/add remove programs...add remove windows components.

You'll see "fax service" in the pop up box, install.

I cannot vouch for the quality of "Fax service" only that it exists.

Good luck:)

[Dennis]

Thanks! I'll give this a go and see how I get on.

Cheers

Dennis

[g__day]

I'm interested to see how this would work. The key thing you need at some point is a broadband ISP with a fax gateway connected to their service. It would be trivial for them to set this up, but until they do I just don't see how you'd jump your digital data onto someone's analogue POTS (Plain Old Telephone System - I kid you not) line that all fax machines are connected to.

I expect your problem is in finding a fax gateway on your broadband arrangement. Maybe Skype might help? I tried this 2 years ago and Optus said no go, they hadn't even thought of a business model to commercially set up this type of useful pay as you need service.

[RAJAH235]

Here's a very old link on the subject from MS help site > http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/crawford_02october21.mspx
:D L.

[wasyoungonce]

yep, after more research:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=138751

you cannot software fax over DSL. Sorry

[Dennis]

Hello,

Gee, what a great bunch of knowledgeable people you are! I would like to thank everyone for their contribution to this post, asking for help with faxing from my PC.

Cheers

Dennis

[g__day]

Do what I do maybe, buy a Brother Networked Multi-functional Device, whch includes 33KB fax and a document feeder (its a colour inkjet but even the kids rarely use this, we use ablack & white Canon Laser mostly). The Brother normally sells for $300 but on officeworks direct it goes for $160 and as its network enabled out of the box it goes striaght into my broadband router.

You can plug this device into your analogue phone system and its simply a fancy fax. It may only be used half a dozen times a year, but its a life saver when its needed at short notice!