Faxing

In the increasingly rare event that your PC has a built-in fax modem, and your PC is connected to a phone line, it can serve as a true-blue fax machine. This feature works like a charm, saves money on paper and fax cartridges, and may even spare you the expense of buying a physical fax machine.

Sending a fax is even easier on a PC than on a real fax machine; you just use the regular Print command (Ctrl+P), exactly as though you were making a printout of the onscreen document. When faxes come in, you can opt to have them printed automatically, or you can simply read them on the screen. You even get a dedicated program, Windows Fax and Scan, for the purpose of managing faxes

Tip

The similarity with printing doesn’t stop there. The Devices and Printers folder even contains a Fax icon that works just like a printer icon.

Sending a Fax from Any Program

Now, the one big limitation of PC-based faxing is that you can transmit only documents that are, in fact, on the computer. That pretty much rules out faxing notes scribbled on a legal pad, clippings from People magazine, and so on (unless you scan them first).

If you’re still undaunted, the procedure for sending a fax is very easy:

  1. Open up whatever document you want to fax. Choose FilePrint.

    The Print dialog box appears.

  2. Click the Fax icon (or choose Fax from the Select Printer list, as shown in Figure 19-11), and then click OK or Print.

    The very first time you try faxing, you encounter the Fax Setup Wizard. It first asks you to connect ...

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