Faxing From Outlook

[mr-tom]

Hi,

Not used a fax machine in some years (since I changed employer).

A current colleague has a need to send lots of stuff via fax (don't ask why)
but everything is in Word and Outlook, and I remembered that with my old
employer, I used to be able to compose an email in Outlook and send it to a
fax machine.

Thing is I have no idea how this worked.

I've read through the KB article, Faxing in Windows XP" and whilst
enlightening, it expects one to have a fax modem connected to a phone line.

I'm just using a "standard" (yes I know they're all different buy you get
the idea) corporate PC which connects to the world via ethernet and the
corporate network, so I have no fax modem. This was the case at my previous
job too, so I know this is entirely possible.

I have a large degree of control over how my machine (and my colleague's) is
configured so if I need to make changes I most likely can.

Unless it sat on the exchange server, I'm unaware of my old employer using
any special means to send email to faxes via outlook,

Any thoughts on how I can duplicate this functionality (or comments that I'm
an idiot and should have noticed this or that KB article!) will be very
gratefully received and profuse apologies given if I've missed the very
obvious.

Many thanks.

Tom.

 

[Lem]

Hi,

Not used a fax machine in some years (since I changed employer).

A current colleague has a need to send lots of stuff via fax (don't ask why)
but everything is in Word and Outlook, and I remembered that with my old
employer, I used to be able to compose an email in Outlook and send it to a
fax machine.

Thing is I have no idea how this worked.

I've read through the KB article, Faxing in Windows XP" and whilst
enlightening, it expects one to have a fax modem connected to a phone line.

I'm just using a "standard" (yes I know they're all different buy you get
the idea) corporate PC which connects to the world via ethernet and the
corporate network, so I have no fax modem. This was the case at my previous
job too, so I know this is entirely possible.

I have a large degree of control over how my machine (and my colleague's) is
configured so if I need to make changes I most likely can.

Unless it sat on the exchange server, I'm unaware of my old employer using
any special means to send email to faxes via outlook,

Any thoughts on how I can duplicate this functionality (or comments that I'm
an idiot and should have noticed this or that KB article!) will be very
gratefully received and profuse apologies given if I've missed the very
obvious.

Many thanks.

Tom.

You *can't* fax without a fax modem.

You can get from an application on your computer to a fax modem in at
least the following 3 ways.

1. Install a fax modem in your computer. This can either be internal
(PCI card) or external (USB, or in the old days, serial). In addition to
the hardware, you'll have to install Windows XP Fax Services and hope
that it decides that the fax modem you bought is acceptable. See
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/FAQFAX.htm (some links on the page are
outdated)

2. Use a network fax server. This is undoubtedly what your previous
employer used. The last time I looked into this, RightFax was the market
leader. It's quite expensive.
http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/fax-server.aspx

3. Use one of the many Internet fax solutions. eFax is one such:
http://www.efax.com/

 

[mr-tom]

Thanks Lem.

Seems astonishing really - it's such an old technology that I naievely
expected that pretty much any server or router that talks to the web (which
basically is just sending stuff down phone lines) would also talk to faxes.

Ah well - thanks for clarifying.

Tom.