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- Get Connected
- Sending a Fax
- The Fax Queue and Beyond
- Receiving Faxes
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Sending a Fax
Sending a fax is almost as easy as printing. Really.
- On your Mac, create or open a document you want to send as a fax. For example, perhaps you've written a letter in Word and would prefer to send it by fax rather than mail it to its recipient. (Hey, a stamp costs 37 cents and a one-page fax takes less than a minute to send, so faxes can save money as well as time.)
- Choose Print from the File menu in the program, or press Command-P. The
Print dialog box opens, it probably will look something like the one in Figure 1
(this one is from Word 2004).
Figure 1 The Print dialog box for a Word document on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
- Choose Fax PDF from the PDF button's menu at the bottom of the
dialog box (see Figure 2). The Print dialog box changes to display fax
options.
Figure 2 Click the Fax PDF button in the Print dialog box and select Fax PDF from the list.
- Choose your fax modem from the Modem pop-up menu. The options will
include your internal modem; if your computer is on a network or is
Bluetooth-enabled, you'll also get options for shared faxes or Bluetooth.
For this example, I'm using my eMac's internal modem (see Figure
3).
Figure 3 Be sure to choose the correct modem from the pop-up menu.
- In the To field, enter the recipient's fax phone number. There are two ways to do this. One way is to simply type the phone number exactly as it should be dialed, as in Figure 4. Another method is to type the name of someone in your address book who has a fax number. As you type, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger tries to match what you type with an address book entry. It displays the name and fax number, as shown in Figure 5. If you want to send the fax to more than one person, type a comma after each phone number. A separate fax will be sent to each person.
- If you must dial one or more digits to get an outside line, enter the appropriate digits in the Dialing Prefix box. For example, if you're faxing from an office and need to dial 9 to get an outside line, enter 9 in the box. The same applies if you're using your laptop in a hotel that requires you to dial 9 or 8 to get a regular dial tone. You can also use the box to enter 1 for a long-distance number.
- If you want to include a cover page with the fax, select the Use Cover Page check box.
- Enter a subject for the fax in the Subject box. This text appears in the Subject line of the cover page, if you're using one.
- Enter your cover page message in the Message box, if you're using a
cover page. The message will appear on the cover page along with the recipient
info from the To field, your name, the date and time (including time zone), the
subject from the Subject field, and the number of pages after the cover
page.
When you're done specifying your fax setup, the dialog box might look
like Figure 6.
Figure 6 Example of fax options that include cover page text.
- Click Fax. The document is digitized and sent to the fax queue. Moments later, you'll hear a dial tone and some dialing as your computer sends the fax.
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Figure 4 Enter a phone number the way it must be dialed. (No, this isn't a real fax number.)
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Figure 5 You can enter the name of someone whose contact info in your address book includes a fax number.
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