Number 221 - October 2001
Sending Faxes from Your PC
Don Edrington, PC Chat, June 5, 2001
    When modems first appeared in the late 1970s, they were add-on peripherals that had no faxing capabilities. When fax modems appeared shortly thereafter, they were a boon to those of us who create a lot of computer documents that need to be faxed. With fax machines costing $800 and up in those days, being able to fax directly from one's computer was a very attractive option.

    Now, however, with relatively inexpensive desktop devices that can scan, copy, print and even send e-mail, the faxing of documents directly from the applications in which they were created seems to be on the decline. In fact, many PC users I talk to are surprised to hear their modems even have faxing capabilities.

    If you create documents with a word processor or a spreadsheet utility or a drawing program, for instance, you probably output the finished product with a laser or inkjet printer, and then fax the page(s) with your desktop fax machine (which could be part of the printer if you use one of the multipurpose devices). I find it more practical to type a letter with my word processor and then fax it directly to the intended recipient without making a printout (unless I need a hard copy as a backup).

    Yes, I do have a fax machine; one of the $800 relics that uses the old-style curly, heat sensitive paper. I use it mainly for incoming faxes, or for outgoing faxes of items that weren't created on my computer. However, I accept incoming faxes on this machine or on my PC, depending on which is most practical in a particular situation.

    If the idea of sending and receiving faxes with your computer appeals to you, how does one go about doing it? Well, modems normally come with faxing software, which may have been installed when the modem's drivers were installed. Check your modem's manual. It should tell you how to setup and use the fax software.

    You can also buy separate faxing software. WinFax appears to be the most popular and has been
around for a long time. I bought WinFax back in the Windows 3.0 days and was pleased to see that it continued to work with Win95 and Win98. However, the program fell victim to Y2K and died on January 1 of last year.

    However, one of my readers sent me a URL for downloading a shareware fax program that works beautifully and which I have been using ever since. It's called 32bitFax and can be downloaded from www.electra soft.com/ 32bf.htm.

    However, as a matter of curiosity, I went to CNet's web site this morning to see if they had any freeware of shareware fax programs and was pleasantly surprised to see that several were listed. The URL for this page is pretty long, but here it is. You should be able to click the blue link to bring up the web page. http://aolsvccomp.cnet.com/downloads/ 1,10150, 0-10000-103-0-1-7,00.html?tag=srch&qt=fax+ software & cn=& amp; ca=10000 or...you can log on to www.cnet.com and type "fax software" into the Search box.

    I'll be downloading and testing at least one of the free programs listed on this site and will report on it/them in a future column. In the meantime, if anyone has questions on using fax software, I'll be glad to offer any help I can via phone or e-mail. Be aware, however, that the various programs have many different features and tend to work quite a bit differently from one to another, and I don't pretend to know all of their ins and outs.

    Here's another example of how I fax directly from my home computer. I design advertising flyers, price brochures, and other artwork for my business using Corel Draw and other graphic programs. As the art is prepared on my PC, I fax proofs to my Art Director at my screen printing business in another city.

    Doing it this way has yet another advantage. Since my PC and fax machine are on two separate phone lines, the latter's line is free to accept incoming faxes while I'm sending others out on my computer's line.
  Number 221 - October 2001