I was talking to someone the other day who said he was faxing resumes from home. I mentioned it's convenient having a fax machine at home and was asking him about it. He said that if I have a printer/scanner, I can do faxing from my PC. He didn't know how to set it up for a PC because he bought an actual fax machine, but mentioned it can be done. I never heard of this before.
Has anybody heard of setting up a printer/scanner to do faxing,or was this a hoax? I asked him what phone number would you use to do it, and he said use the home number.
It is possible if you have a fax modem. Look in your Windows Accessories menu and the folders there and see if you have a program called something to do with Fax. You might also find it if you right click a document and hover over the "send to" menu and see if it lists Fax or Fax Recipient. If you have what you need you should be able to scan and save a document and then use the fax modem to send it.
If you have a dial up modem you may be able to fax through windows. It's been so long since I've done it, but I used to do it - before everyone had email.
The easiest way is to have an "all in one" printer/scanner/fax/copier machine. This is not as daunting a prospect as you might think. Your printer may already have these capabilities. If you can give me the model of your printer and I can do a quick search to see if this exists.
If your printer doesn't do this, then you can buy one for less than 200 bucks. I got a nice deal at Staples for a multi-function laser printer that can do all this for that price.
As suggested above, look for a function that says fax in one of your start menu options or do a local file search for fax. I'd be surprised that any printer made within the past five years can't deal with this.
Thanks for the ideas. I looked around in Window accessories and didn't see anything to do with faxes and I opened a document and right clicked on it, and there nothing relating to faxes, so I guess it's a mute point on my computer. It was worth a try. Sometimes I see job ads that specify faxing a resume-it's rare, but does occur occasionally-so I thought it would be convenient to fax from home, but oh well, it's back to plan A.
ETA: Eddy: I have a HP 1350 all-in-one printer-scanner-copier.
Ok, I took a quick look and it seems that your printer isn't capable of faxing items. Granted, this was a very quick look of less than five minutes but if your printer had fax capabilities, there would be a standard numeric phone keypad for it which I didn't see in the pictures I looked at.
I'm thinking you don't have the ability to fax.
There may be a way to fax via your computer and software but since you said you couldn't see anything on your start menu I'm doubting this. One way to know if you can is to see if you have a dial-up modem in your machine. It will take a standard phone cable to see. Broadband (cable/ISDN) won't allow this directly.
There are online services that allege they can fax for free however I haven't used them so I can't guarantee their quality.
I started faxing directly from my Mac in 1997. Fax software came with every Mac and I had the computer connected through the built-in dial-up telephone modem. Since I didn't have a dedicated fax line, if someone wanted to send me a fax they'd have to call me first and let me know they were going to send it, so I'd hang up and start up the fax software and they'd call back on the same line and I'd let the computer answer the phone. The software would detect the fax noise and automatically start receiving, the fax would be saved into a folder and I could open it as a PDF.
If I wanted to send out a fax, I just scanned a doc and saved it as a PDF and had the fax software dial up the phone number of someone's fax machine and it was sent automatically. I could also fax a document in the computer from any application. It was easy-peasy.
I don't do it anymore, though, because I don't need to send and receive faxes these days, I just deal with files through email. But faxing to and from computers has been around for about 15 years, maybe more. It was used more back in the day because people were connected to the internet through the regular telephone modem, but most people are connect through broadband now and don't want to deal with having to have a dedicated phone line just for faxing from home.
Eddy: You pretty much confirmed what I thought about not having the ability to fax, since I couldn't find anything that said fax.
Anastasia: You said sending a fax was easy from your Mac, but to me it sounds like extra steps than a regular fax machine-scanning and converting the document to a PDF file, assuming the person receiving the fax can convert the PDF file to a regualr, readable document. When I think of fax, I'm thinking of the receiver of the fax getting a hard copy of what I sent.
I'm not too concerned about the ability to fax since I hardly ever send a fax anyway and it's becoming, or already is, obsolete technology. When I see a job ad and they say to fax a resume, I question why they want a fax rather than an e-mail and who is actually receiving and reading the fax.
I think most computers don't come standard with a modem anymore. On bestbuy.com I see they have an external usb fax/modem for 50 bucks. You can probably find one cheaper or if you have an old computer laying around it might have one. If you find one, you should be able to "print" to a fax recipient...the software will let you set up a printer called 'fax capture' or something close to that. It's sometimes handy to be able to fax from your computer.
Edit: OK, I just googled fax modem and see a card for 12 bucks on amazon.com.
(05-26-2010 11:56 PM)mark1030 Wrote: [ -> ]It is possible if you have a fax modem. Look in your Windows Accessories menu and the folders there and see if you have a program called something to do with Fax. You might also find it if you right click a document and hover over the "send to" menu and see if it lists Fax or Fax Recipient. If you have what you need you should be able to scan and save a document and then use the fax modem to send it.
HOLY shit I got one,(the program says Fax that is) LMAO. I never knew I had it.
THANKS MARK
Only had this computer for a month or so. So who knew
LOL
One question can I use the Modem that Roadrunner provides? Or do I still need to buy that Best Buy one?
I don't know what modem roadrunner provides. If it is a fax/modem you can use it.
(05-28-2010 01:07 AM)mark1030 Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know what modem roadrunner provides. If it is a fax/modem you can use it.
I looked on the back of it. It is a cable modem. So I don't think I can run a fax through it. There is no spot on it that says Fax.
But hey, at least I know if I want to do it, I got the software built in already. I know for a fact my old computer never had that.
So now,all I need is that special modem
Thanks again Mark
The only thing you need to fax documents from your computer is a fax modem. if your system has one in it, depending on the version of Windows you are using, there are different areas you go to set up fax capabilities. If you are using XP, just got to your Control Panel and you will see an option for Printers & Faxes. Click on that, and in the upper left corner you should have an option to "Set up faxing"
Most systems these days do NOT have a fax modem built in to them though. You cannot use a DSL or Cable modem for faxing, it has to be the old style dial up modem, and you have to plug a phone line directly in to it for a dial tone, just like a regular fax machine. If your system does have it, then you can set up the fax software and you can fax your text and word docs to a standard fax machine and it will print out a hard copy.