sending fax

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:12:33 -0400, Littlefield, Tyler wrote:
> I keep having to send faxes to people who really should accept emails 
> instead but don't. I'm in a dorm and have no clue where a phone line 
> would even be connected, even if I had a modem to use. I was wondering 
> if there's a way to do this through BSD? Just prepare the fax somehow on 
> the desktop side and let BSD send it off? I could get a number from any 
> number of places I think and just use that as my outbound. Any ideas/etc 
> would be awesome.

I've been "inventing" something like that more than a decade
ago: You send an e-mail with a PDF attachment to a specific
address, e. g. fax at example.com, then specify the fax number
in the subject. A remote server, connected to a serial modem
(connected to a phone line with a fax number) would then send
it, using Hylafax. Similarly, received faxes would be turned
into e-mails with PDF attachments. You could then print it
if you wanted, or simply store it on disk.

Of course it would be easier to train users to use e-mail,
a document scanning mechanism or PDF export from their
"productivity" software, but fax, claimed to be dead,
is still alive. I know that, I live in Germany. ;-)

I'm quite sure there is an online service that you can use
which implements something comparable, usually through a
web interface. Maybe you could even register a number via
"Internet telephony" and have that as a incoming and out-
going fax number, handling faxes in software without the
need of an actual modem.

Check "make -C /usr/ports search name=fax | less" if there
is something that fits into your setting and meets your
requirements.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...