Five Good Reasons to Trash Your Fax Machine

Will I need then a scanner to send a document that wasn't produced in my computer? And also to send a signed document when a real signature is needed?

If I need a scanner, which would you recommend, one that would be an affordable and practical one?

Thank you

I am constantly on the road. When a purchase is requested from most of my suppliers, They want a signature. How do I sign an E-fax and return the order?

You missed out on usb fax/modems. With one of those you don't need the internet fax thing.

I can fax anything out of my machine at any time courtesy of my fax/modem thing. Cost a few dollars. Needs no ink or paper.

Can receive faxes, too, same way.

Much software available. No problem.

The only problem I see with this is that when it is a form to be filled out and sent back, this doesn't work. You either need a scanner or something of the sort. Otherwise, I can agree with all of the above.

Consider the loss of privacy if you send faxes via email! Would you write your social security number on a post card and mail it? E-mail is as private as a post card.

I use the fax function of my 4-in-one printer to send outgoing faxes (using my regular telephone line), and I use Internet faxing for incoming faxes. The fax service sends me a link so I can download my faxes from their Web site.

In this way I have privacy coming and going. (Real estate agents, insurance people, health care folks: Don't you ALL have a responsibility to protect the private information supplied by your clients and patients?)

Here's the biggest reason some offices MUST stay with the FAX machine: The federal HIPAA laws (those which protect a patient's right to privacy and protection of his/her health record) prohibit e-mail transmissions of a patient's medical information or any information pertinent to a patient's health record.

Your question is tricky. It depends who and why some people still use fax?

In Japan mostly from office to factory and even some homes are still using Fax why? they are easy, spam free, quick and popular among aged community. However, there is a change in paper. The old style fax paper is changed in new Fax machines.

I've been faxing through my modem for ages, ever since Delrina came out with Winfax.
When I updated my OS, Winfax did not work anymore...Then Symantic took over and it was all over...Winfax 8 did not work, neither does ver. 10 or 11. Arthur's comment about "much software available" made me curious, because I can't find anything. People in electronics stores look at you like you were from another planet when you ask for fax software...BTW, signatures were never a problem, I just used a feature called "annotations"

One good reason to keep a fax machine:

I use mine at home as a photo-copier, quicker than scanning then printing.

I work in a law office. Scanning to email requires going to the big copy machine and scanning to email, then going to my inbox, finding the document (always have to open it to make sure I've got the right one) and saving it to file. Then I have to find the client's email, which might be in contacts, or maybe in their file, or maybe I have to phone for it. A cover-letter-type email must be written of course (law office - formalities), and finally I can attach the file and send it. And then check the "sent" box only to realize I forgot to actually attach the attachment, and do it again.

Whereas to send a fax, I actually only have to do the first step at the beginning of all that, excepting only that instead of hitting the "scan to email" button, I hit the "send" button. And Bob's your uncle.

Actually we do a lot of scanning and email, as document clarity is better, and we have fewer lost transmissions. But fax is quick and dirty and not going to disappear anytime soon. Particularly as all those clients have to send back signed things and usually don't know how to do it on their own systems!

At the onset I really enjoy Bob's newsletter. This issue to converting over to the computer fax as opposed to the old fax method definitely has me concerned. I've seen articles prior to this one and there is no way I am going this route. Privacy over the computer network is GONE! You still have to have additional equipment and learn a whole new system. There is no way I would ever use this method with all the hacking going on. It might be in vogue but no thanks. I'll stick to my "old 4 In 1". I don't do that much faxing, copying and no scanning. And I got one at a decent price with good support and doesn't cost that much to maintain.

For free faxing on computer "you only need...".

No, you also need to live in North America - doesn't work in Europe.

Your accountant is right for a very simple reason:
copy of a valid signature (not electronically falsified) and valid origin (not electronically falsified)!

You can through them out when computers will use their hidden capacity to identify themself uniquely, lol. The LEFT will never agree in that!

Faxes are still good to send single page documents to small companys that aren't networked so that one computor that is set up to recieve documents than distribute it to the person they are intened for. Large documents done on hard copy still need a scaner to input it than faxed. Windows has a fax machine software that works great for nothing. I would rather just e-mail the doc directly to my contact.

Internet faxing requires "a bit" of computer and office machine knowledge which is not always the case for (believe it or not) many people. It also requires more time to get your document "ready" for the submission.

I have used a program called FaxMachine for several years. Only requires a scanner and printer (and a modem on your computer to connect into POTS)and you can actually get away from the scanner if all you fax is various formats of documents that are already on your computer, i.e. Word, Plain Text, pdf, etc.

This great little program is published by Nico Cuppen and you pay for it one time, then receive updates at no cost from that point forward as long as Nico continues the updates.

Bob I've read your article and all the comments but I'm not getting why I should use Internet Fax instead of email.

At my workplace:
We send messages by email.
We send documents as attachments to email.
We send SIGNED documents by printing, signing, scanning, and then adding as attachments to email.
What's the advantage of sending that to a phone number instead of an email address?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I was not advocating the use of online fax over email. I was suggesting that people use online faxing instead of faxing with a fax machine.

I would like to get rid of the fax but hundreds of people / companies have my fax number and that needs to stay the same or else I will lose business or have problems. Is there a fax service or program that lets me use my same fax number?

The beauty of FAX is that people take more notice of it, they hear the machine whiring and get up and see what has come thru you will often get a responce much more quickly if you FAX

Am I being dim? FAX by internet is really just scanning and emailing with attachment so why bother with FAX?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Suppose you have no fax machine or scanner, and the recipient needs/wants to receive your document (text, PDF, image, Word file) as a fax, then using an online fax service gets the job done without you needing to have a fax machine.