<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I was wondering, how do you usually fax documents? I am thinking of using one of the free fax services online. Do you think such services will be reliable? If you have done so before, how was your experience and what service do you recommend?</p>
<p>Thank you very much!</p>
<p>If you can scan the document and send it as an email attachment, you may not need to use a fax at all.</p>
<p>Ask the people who need to receive the documents whether a fax is absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>I used one of the free online fax options and it worked quite well. They ended up getting the message and I spared myself the long-distance charges and the time spent tying up a landline. </p>
<p>However, the free services have a limit on the number of pages and frequency of usage per month. That meant I couldn’t use it for a recent 14 page fax I had to send to an older associate who refused to use email. </p>
<p>Fortunately, that was a local call but having the faxing take nearly 20 minutes was annoying.</p>
<p>I have to do some faxing for volunteer work (so I have to pay) and took it up to Kinkos… and was charged $1 per page! I realized I needed a less expensive alternative. I looked at a few free services and have used Pamfax. It is not entirely free. I charged up my account with $10 and pay only a few pennies per page. I scan documents and then fax them. Yes, I could email the documents as attachments but most of my recipients have fax machines and expect to receive these documents via fax. When I opened my Pamfax account they gave me a fax number so I could receive faxes, but after a 30 day free trial it was going to cost me $70/year to keep the fax number so I let that go, but retain the ability to send faxes cheap. Their service works well.</p>
<p>NJres, you might try efax for incoming faxes. Their basic service is for incoming faxes only, and is free. You get the fax via email. It has worked well for me, as I only receive about one fax a month. You can pay up for the ability to send faxes, but I’ve not tried that…your description of Pamfax sounds good. </p>
<p>Usually, scanning and sending by email is good enough for my purposes. And yes, I once went to Kinkos because the doc HAD to be sent by fax, and was shocked at the expense!</p>
<p>If you have a desktop, you can add a modem for faxing. and there are many free faxing software around including the native faxing software in Windows. I am using a 15 year old winfax, it will convert a word doc or scanned image to fax and fax it out using your home phone line.</p>
<p>We needed to fax a contract on a house sale on a Sat. evening several years ago. No Kinko’s. I finally went to a local hotel about 10 p.m. and asked if they would fax it for me. I offered to pay, but they did it for free.</p>
<p>Wow, what a great idea, tango14! If you ever need to sell/buy real estate again, it should be easier - we’ve done both in the last 6 months, and both real estate agents used Docusign. It is brilliant - all by computer and no faxing or ‘real’ signatures needed.</p>
<p>Our office uses a paid online service with a toll-free number, it is about $12/mo, unlimited pages and online access to see old faxes if I need to recreate them.</p>
<p>Happymomof1 – Unfortunately, quite a few businesses, including many who have any dealings with medical issues (insurance, doctors, hospitals, LTC) won’t accept emailed documents because they think that the HIPPA rules will be violated because of the lack of security. So we’ve been forced to fax LTC claims, powers of attorney, durable POA for healthcare decisions and so on quite a bit. I wish it wasn’t the case. </p>
<p>Any of you have experiences with good fax sending software for a Mac? I’ve been doing it from our old Windows box, but I’d like to switch it over to the MacBook Pro.</p>
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<p>The security point they cite is BS. Faxes…like phone calls can be easily intercepted/recorded with sufficient knowledge and tools available to your average adolescent script kiddie. IMO, most businesses/persons who insist on a fax do so because it’s what they’re familiar with and they’re not willing to change/adjust with the times. </p>
<p>As for faxing via Mac…assuming you have an old analogue(phone) modem…set your printer settings to print from a fax printer icon through the faxmodem and when a dialog box pops up requesting the fax number and other info…add that info and then fax away. :)</p>
<p>I’d say 80% of our communication with physicians is through fax.</p>
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<p>That is true. A company I deal with emailed me to say they didn’t receive some documents. I used a fax server to send them in a pdf document. Well, I reply emailed, attaching the document pdf and they replied requesting that I fax it. So there I go, emailing the pdf to the fax server.</p>
<p>On the flip side, we recently refinanced and 90% of it was done via email and attached scanned documents. The other 10% was a few phone calls and when we went to the title company to sign final papers. It was a very convenient process.</p>
<p>My H has a fax machine at his office but 3 years ago he was transferred and we spent 6 mos apart. In the relocation we needed to fax things all the time, I finally got tired of bugging people and bought my own fax machine. I think I paid $20 and I use it once a month probably. It’s easy to have around, I keep it in the basement and bring it up when I need to use it.</p>
<p>It was easier than trying to figure out how to configure my documents and sent or email them. My D bought a copier, fax, printer because she has to send her homework to her professors. I think she spent under $40 for her’s. Her old printer broke but she uses the universities printers for her copying but her personal printer to send documents.</p>
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<p>I haven’t had a fax machine since my last one conked out nearly 6 years ago. </p>
<p>I use my computer’s faxmodem to send any necessary faxes. If I need to email/fax something that’s in paper format, I’d scan them first into a PDF file. Then, I’d attach it to an outgoing email(easy/quick) or fax it off using my faxmodem(more of a pain/slow). </p>
<p>Yes, I’d much prefer to email rather than fax documents…especially if they’re 10+ pages.</p>
<p>I know the HIPPA line is b.s., but it is almost always what is used as the excuse for why they won’t accept email. In general, I’d like to strangle whoever wrote the HIPPA guidelines because they seem to be seriously misunderstood and misapplied in almost all contexts. </p>
<p>Using a fax machine I can rarely send a fax of more than 7 pages without having some kind of error. Very frustrating. </p>
<p>My laptop doesn’t have a modem. I’d really prefer an on-line solution that would work with the Mac, since I do have a consistent wi-fi connection.</p>
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<p>Unless it’s less than 3 pages and you send 2 or less faxes per month, it’s likely you’re going to have to pay for an email to fax solution. </p>
<p>You mentioned your PC is able to send faxes…if that’s the case…I’d continue using that old Windows Box to send faxes unless paying the fee for the premium(beyond the free service) email to fax solutions is more financially worthwhile.</p>
<p>Speaking of Wi-Fi, I hope it is secured with a password and encrypted with WPA or better. If it is not secured or secured with WEP…you may end up with bigger privacy/security issues…</p>
<p>Oh yeah. Secured every which way, and with a password that is a gazillion characters long on top of the firewalls, and the port hidden as well. I just about cry anytime I need to let a new device have access; it is a royal pain. </p>
<p>I’m ready to pay, as long as it is under $5 a month – H’s Window’s box drives me nuts, and I don’t like the hassle of moving files from my system to his.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Many schools I’m applying to do not accept emails. The only form of electronic communication they allow is fax. For those who tried online fax before, can you please recommend me some websites?</p>
<p>Thank you very much!</p>
<p>Efax worked fine for my husbands business</p>