“One of the great features of Mac OS X is the ability to send and receive faxes without the use of special faxing software. Best of all, the faxing capabilities work seamlessly with Apple’s Address Book application, making it very easy to send faxes to people in your address book. Just a few clicks does the job,” Maria Langer writes for Peachpit Press.
“In this article, I’ll explain how you can use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and your internal fax modem to fax documents to people. I’ll also tell you how you can configure Mac OS X to answer the phone and receive faxes if you don’t have a dedicated fax machine,’ Langer writes.
Full article here.
That’s cool, but is there any way to fax without using a phone line? Maybe an online service or something similar? My fiance and I have only cell phones, and there’s no way I’m paying the phone company $30 a month (plus $80 installation!!) just to have a jack in my house.
There used to be a web application called “Jfax” that did what you’re talking about, handling faxing through a centralized system that sends you an image file; I don’t know if it’s still available.
I used eFax a few times too…
try efax, they offer a free service and a pay for service
There is also the Vonage Fax function…for what, $5 or $10 per month?
Umm… this was a new feature in 10.3… it took this long for her to figure it out
IF your cell happens to be a bluetooth phone, you’d like this tip that came out this morning.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050714172936688&lsrc=osxh
A couple of benefits of J2/Jfax are (and I don’t work for them):
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– send emails as faxes (with or without attachments)
– incoming faxes come to your email inbox
– view incoming faxes as attachments (.TIF/.PDF)
– redirect faxes to any other fax (or alternatively – use any fax machine in the world as your own printer)
My usage:
– fax comes in
– email notification to my Blackberry
– if I’m away from my desk, I ask the nearest person for their fax number
– I then forward my incoming J2 fax to that person’s fax machine and my fax is printed out
Allows me to review faxes at my leisure from any PC on the planet and I get notifications of the incoming fax # and # of pages.
Django: Is there any way to Fax with out a phone line?
Yes its called Internet Fax, and its been in Windows since 98 SE.
Wow, Apple actually has a feature that Windows had 10 years ago..Nice
So what does it say if you are saying Microsoft had this 10 year ago if I observe and still use today, NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP on which I enjoyed integrated faxes from 15 years ago. I would fax chess moves to a person at Businessland and made exceptional money in a couple of markets providing fax service quality no one else could offer at prices no else could match. I could receive a 100 page fax and not worry about running out of fax paper or even putting this on thermal paper. In fact, and though the resolution limit was 200 dpi, I had a 400 dpi laser printer to print these.
Oh, did I mention how I could do all of this while being connected to the Internet, sending and receiving E-mail and/or having what most know now as Instant Message exchanges with people around the world.
I sent faxes to a person at IBM that were taken a VP and he got called in to the office in order for them to learn what was used to transmit them.
I could fax E-mail as well if necessary or could assemble a fax from various documents and programs as one file to transmit. Yes, all 15 years ago and extremely seamless. The only thing I couldn’t fax were any integrated voice messages that a person including in their E-mail. Faxing was something Apple could have included with Mac OS X at the very start. Why they didn’t I doubt stem from some great technical difficulties.
There is no fax program incorporated in the Windows 98 Operating System, but your modem might have had fax capabilities. One would have had to check the modem documentation that came with your computer or your modem.
Nor on Windows ME or 2000. They all needed modem with fax capabilities. The capability was in the MODEM, not the OS.
AND, oh wait, one could have had the same with the Mac.
FaxSFT and other 3rd party tools were there even before OS 9 and with a Fax Modem no need for a phone line.
DitchWitch: go back to study your Windows manual or – better – try to understand them.
Only Windows XP has builtin optional fax capabilities: AND Fax is not installed by default during Windows Setup.
To install the Fax component on Windows XP:
Open Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel.
Click on Add/Remove Windows Components.
In the Windows Components Wizard, select the Fax Services check box
follow the instructions on your screen.
Notes:
To open Fax after installation:
Click Start
Point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to Communications,
Click Fax Console.
For more information on using Fax, click Help in Fax Console.
There’s a good roundup of online fax services at http://www.savetz.com/fax/
Or, you could just use a fax machine.
Or, you could just e-mail.
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I have Vonage but the fax feature in OSX does not work with VOIP.
mBox have a MAC OS X printer driver that allows you to fax from any application that you can print from. Checkout http://www.mymbox.com/macfax