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Faxing On Your Computer

© Maureen Fleury

I'm in the process of job hunting and if you have done this lately, you will notice that most employers are asking people to fax their resumes. Some companies will give you an email address and very few will give you a snail mail address. If you are sending out several resumes a day, it is a bother to run to the local store to fax them out. Yes, you could buy a fax machine but would you be able to justify the cost? I found a solution. All you need is your computer and a modem with faxing capabilities (cable or DSL modems won't work)

I did a search on the Internet for PC faxing programs and I found one that was easy to use and doesn't charge per call. (except for long distance calls). I was cautioned that some programs re-route your transmission to a switching centre and that can incur additional costs even if it's a local call.

The program I finally selected is called Mighty Fax. Just like any fax machine, this program only charges you for long distance calls. You can send a cover sheet and set up an address book for your frequently called numbers. Unfortunately, Mighty Fax does not allow batching of faxes (i.e.group transmissions).

You can also set this program to accept incoming faxes. One word of caution. If your modem is hooked up to your residential/business phone line and you have the program in "waiting for incoming fax" mode, all incoming phone calls cannot go through. Your computer will try to translate the incoming call into a faxed message. In addition, if you use the modem for internet access, you won't be able to go online if you have your program set in "receive" mode. If you are frequently accepting faxes, it is highly recommended to get a second phone line.

What I like about this program is that I can create a document in MS Word and transmit it without exiting. It is handy because it eliminates the need to retrieve the document. All you do is choose Mighty Fax as your printer and that will invoke the program. Apparently, this program can be launched from a variety of Windows applications.

When you want to send a fax, a popup screen appears for you to enter in the destination fax number.

When you click on the "send fax now" button, another screen will appear and ask if you want to create a cover page. By selecting "yes", you will be shown a menu of cover pages to choose from. Fill in the cover page and then proceed with faxing the cover page and document. If the fax fails or the recipients's line is busy, you will be notified of the status. It will also go into retry if the line is busy.

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