It is difficult to believe that in this day and age of advanced technology that most people still send faxes using fax machines. When fax machines were first invented, they were a state-of-the-art piece of technology that made business easier. The Internet should have severely crippled the sales of fax machines, but it did not. The reason is that most people do not realize how easy it is to send a fax from a computer.
Preparing The Document
If you want to fax a document, then that document must be in your computer. While all of the documents you create are conveniently stored on your computer’s hard drive, documents you want to fax but did not create might need to be scanned into your computer. Before you can start sending or receiving faxes, you will need to purchase a printer/scanner device for your computer. You can get an inkjet device that scans and prints in color for a very low price.
Faxing Using The Internet
The easiest way to fax from a computer is to use a piece of software that faxes over the Internet. There are many inexpensive and reliable faxing services you can use to set up your computer faxing, and each service will provide you with a phone number you can give to others to send you faxes. All you do is load your document into the software, input the faxing information to create a cover sheet and then press send. The software will do the rest and give you a confirmation that your fax was sent.
Faxing Using A Phone Line
Microsoft Windows 10 is an example of an operating system that comes with free faxing software built in. To get this software to work, you will need to set up your own phone line with a phone number that people can use to send you faxes. You can either contact your local phone company about installing a dedicate landline for your fax, or you can get a VoIP service that will set up an Internet phone line for you. Your computer should have a modem with an RJ11 jack in it that you would plug the phone line into to use your operating system’s fax software.
A Word About Free Online Fax Software
There are plenty of free online faxing services, but they do have limitations and extra features you may not want. Most free faxing services put an ad on your cover sheet which may or may not be acceptable to your company. The free services also limit how many pages you can send per fax, and how many faxes you can send in a month. If you are going to be doing a lot of faxing, it is best to pay for your services.
A computer with an Internet connection is able to communicate with other devices all over the world. If you want to use your computer to send faxes, then it can be as simple as setting up an account with an online fax service and pressing a button.
Jim Treebold is a North Carolina based writer. He lives by the mantra of “Learn 1 new thing each day”! Jim loves to write, read, pedal around on his electric bike and dream of big things. Drop him a line if you like his writing, he loves hearing from his readers!