Save your money by faxing directly through your PC
Save your money by faxing directly through your PC
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): In offices and homes, fax machines have become
as ubiquitous as 'tukang parkir' (parking attendants) in Jakarta.
In fact, no real office today can operate without one.
The popularity of the fax is justifiable. Sending a fax is
more cost-efficient than making a phone call, since you can say a
lot more on a sheet of paper than in a two-minute phone
conversation. Better still, you tend to be more focused when you
write down your message. On the other hand, when you talk, you
can easily get sidetracked and forget the things you wanted to
say, ask or confirm before you dialed the number.
Fax/modems are not as ubiquitous as fax machines, but they
cost less and enable you to access the Internet as well. Today,
you can hardly find a modem that doesn't perform double duty as a
fax. The faxing capability of the modem is now so taken for
granted that people never call the device a fax/modem anymore.
They just call it a modem, and they expect it to have the fax
function as well.
While the transmission speed of the modem keeps increasing --
33.6 and 56Kbps being the norms today, the speed at which faxes
are sent remains basically the same, i.e., 9,600 bps. If the
phone line is good and the fax at the other end can support it,
you may get a transmission speed of 14,400 bps. Which means you
can save some money and buy an older modem if you intend to use
only its fax function for your PC.
Both fax machines and modems have the intelligence to
negotiate the right speed at which they can comfortably
communicate. If at 9,600 bps they cannot obtain a stable
connection, they will automatically go down to the next level,
i.e., 7,200 bps.
Fax directly
In the past, we used to print our documents first, sign them
and take them to the fax machine. This was OK before the economic
crisis. Today, many of us should really find ways to cut down on
expenses, including the expenses for ink and toner cartridges.
One thing I've been doing is using e-mail, and I'm sure a lot of
you have been doing this much longer than I have. Another thing
that I've also done -- if the other guy is not on the Internet
yet -- is to send him a fax directly from my PC. Believe me, it's
very easy to do.
Of course, you need to have an external modem attached to your
computer (PC or Mac). Or you could buy an internal modem that
would fill one of the slots on your motherboard. Whichever one
you decide to buy, the modem should allow you to send and receive
faxes with your computer.
Then you have to install the fax software that comes with the
modem. However, my recommendation is the highly popular Winfax
Pro from Symantec. You may not find it in the box of the modem
you buy, in which case you would have to buy it separately.
Fortunately, it's not very expensive for the wealth of features
that it has.
When the modem is connected and works well, and the software
is properly installed, you can send your faxes without having to
print them first. This will save you paper and ink (which are
what the term "consumables" means, by the way).
Two ways
You can send your faxes in two ways. For quick and short
messages you can use the facility in Winfax Pro. Load the
program, click on the Send menu item and click on New Fax. This
will give you the Winfax Pro Send dialog box. You can now fill in
the name of the recipient, his fax number, and you can type in
your message in the box under the Cover page Quick Cover Page
option.
You can copy the name and number that you've just typed into
the phonebook. Just click on the Add to phonebook button found on
the right side of the dialog box. You can also copy the names and
numbers from the phonebook into the recipient boxes automatically
by double-clicking on them in the phonebook list.
If you wish, you can also preview the page that you're going
to fax before you actually send it. To do this, click on the
Option button and click on Allow me to preview and annotate fax
button to activate the option. While the dialog box is open, you
can also specify whether you want to send the fax with the
Standard or Fine resolution. To save on your phone bills, I
suggest you use the standard resolution.
If you turn off the preview option, the fax will immediately
be transmitted after you click on the Send button found on the
bottom left corner. You'll hear the modem dialing the recipient's
fax number, and you'll hear some strange sound that is not quite
like a Stradivarius violin before the fax gets printed at the
other end. By the way, as this takes place, Winfax Pro will give
you a visual representation of what is going on. You'll see a
cute graphic image of a fax machine, and you'll see how it
swallows the paper and spits it out on its lower end just like
the real thing.
For longer documents, the quick cover page will not be
adequate. You can create your document in any word processor
program that has the Print command (in the accompanying example I
created a fax in Lotus Ami Pro). Once the document is ready, you
can fax it directly from inside the program.
The way it works is like this: You send the fax by telling the
word processor to print it. However, instead of piping the data
to the printer, the word processor sends it to the fax program,
in this case, to Winfax Pro. Winfax Pro then converts the file
into a raster image that it then faxes to the intended recipient.
So, before you click on the OK button in the Print dialog box,
you have to make sure that the active printer is not HP LaserJet
or Canon BubbleJet or Epson Stylus or whatever, but Winfax Pro.
In Ami Pro, you should do this by clicking on File, and then
Printer Setup. In Winword, you can change the active printer
right from the Print dialog box.
Tips
Ever since the heyday of Ami Pro, every word processor has
come complete with a set of templates for composing faxes. Just
remember that the simpler your fax, the shorter the required time
to send it. Therefore, unless you really think that form is more
important than substance, you should avoid the fancy stuff that
some of these fax templates contain.
Finally, if you need to resubmit a fax, you can follow the
print procedure all over again or you can simply load Winfax Pro,
click with the right mouse button on the fax item found on the
list, and click on the Resubmit command from the menu that
appears.