Which Fax? First Decide If You Really Need One

Choosing a fax machine for your business can be tricky because there are so many options, including not getting one at all.

If you hardly ever receive or send faxes, you can avoid purchasing a machine by arranging with a local copy shop, private mailbox service or other business to receive or send faxes for you for a fee.

If you have a personal computer or a Mac with a modem, you already have a fax machine of sorts.

Almost all modems can send and receive faxes directly from the computer. You need special software that probably came with the modem. If not, you can buy a fax software program such as Winfax from Symantec or download a shareware program such as FaxMail for Windows from ElectraSoft, which is free to try and $29 to register. ValueFax does the same for Mac users. FaxMail for Networks lets you assign one machine on your network to be a fax server so that anyone on the network can send or receive a fax without installing a fax modem on his or her machine. You can find these and other shareware programs at https://www.shareware.com

With most software, you send a fax by “printing” it to the fax modem. The recipient gets a cleaner fax than usual, because it’s purely digital on your end. Unlike regular outgoing faxes, it isn’t degraded by the printer and the fax machine’s scanner. Good fax modem software offers you all sorts of extras, such as the ability to maintain an address book of fax numbers and to broadcast a fax to a mailing list. It’s also convenient to dispatch a fax from the keyboard without having to print it out and run it through a regular fax modem.

The same software can be used to receive faxes at the PC but, unless you get very few faxes, it’s not a great idea. To receive a PC fax, your machine must be on, with the fax software running. Even if the software can run in the background, an incoming fax can cause your machine to hang up or slow down, which could be a problem if you’re in the middle of something critical. I sometimes use my PC to send faxes, but I receive them on a standard fax machine. The advantages to receiving faxes on a PC are that you don’t waste paper if they aren’t printed out and that the faxes remain private, seen only by the person using that PC.

Another option is to use an Internet or online fax service. One service, called Internet Phone Co. (https://www.tpc.int/), is free for sending faxes to many parts of the world. FaxSave (https://www.faxsav.com/) offers an easy-to-use Internet fax service at 15 cents a page within the United States. The first five pages are free.

When it comes to regular fax machines, the least expensive ones use that smelly thermal paper. It’s relatively cheap (I pay about 3 cents a page for my supplies), doesn’t require ink or other consumables, and generally prints out a pretty good image when someone sends a clean original.

But there are drawbacks. The paper can’t be recycled with regular paper, the image can fade after several months, and the stuff is generally unpleasant to handle. If I get a fax with something I need to save, I make a plain paper copy of it and throw away the fax. Some fax machines work with “anti-curl” paper, but it’s more expensive than regular fax paper.

The least expensive plain paper copiers, designed for low volume, use carbon film that is basically carbon paper on a roll. A thermal transfer process uses heat to transfer the ink to the paper. The quality is quite good, especially with text. The film costs about 5 cents a page, but unlike toner or inkjet ink, you use an entire page of film no matter how little text you have on the page. As with all plain paper fax machines, you must also add the cost of the paper. If you use this process, be aware that the used ribbon has an image of your faxes that could compromise confidentiality.

The next level up uses inkjet technology similar to what’s used in most color printers. Print speed is typically about two pages a minute, and ink can get expensive. Because it’s a wet ink process, there is a risk of smudging. Be sure to use nonporous paper designed for inkjet printers.

For top-quality printing, you’re best off with a machine that uses toner, similar to a laser printer or copier. These machines are more expensive to buy but cheaper to operate.

Other issues to consider include the size of the document feeder (it’s nice to be able to stack 10 to 20 pages) and the ability to program frequently used numbers. Some machines have a memory that stores faxes so they can be “broadcast” to multiple recipients. It’s a nice feature if you need it, but few people do.

Some fax machines can determine if a call is another fax machine or a human being. If it’s a person, it releases the call and lets the regular phone ring. That’s an essential feature for people in home offices with only one phone number. Lynx Automation makes a $99 detector that works with any fax machine.

Several companies make multi-function devices that work as a fax machine, copier, PC printer and PC scanner. The obvious advantage is that these machines are a lot cheaper than buying three or four devices, and they take up less space. My biggest concern is that if the machine is out for repair, all of its functions are unavailable.

Some multi-function machines will scan color, and some of the newer models will also print and, in some cases, copy in color. Don’t believe claims about color faxing. That’s only possible in the unlikely event that both the sender and receiver are using compatible PC-based fax equipment. The $999 Brother MFC-7000FC is the most ambitious of the lot. In addition to being a plain paper fax machine, it’s also a PC fax machine, a color 720-dot-per-inch printer, a 1,200-by-1,200-dot-per-inch scanner, a color enlargement and reduction copier, a digital voice message center and a video capture system, and, yes, they throw in a free Ginsu knife.

Brother also has a machine for people who need a fax now but want the option of adding extra functions. Its $299 Intellifax 1270 is a stand-alone fax machine with a connector that allows you to add Brother’s Missing Link, which turns the fax machine into a modem, scanner and printer for about an extra $100.

For more information about fax machines, check out Fax Express at https://www.faxexpress.comhttps://www.faxsav.com

You may write to Lawrence J. Magid at [email protected] and visit his Web site at https://www.larrysworld.com