NT TECH? involving fax pdf and scanner

[erchess]

I had my first trouble with my email fax service today. I had a document I had to print and get signed by clients before I could fax it so I printed it on 8.5 by 11 paper (you will see why paper size matters) and I used my scanner to convert it to a PDF. I then used my email fax service to send it and twice only the cover page provided in the software went. Since I was soon going to go out anyway I simply added another stop and used a physical fax. But before I left I emailed tech support at the email fax company. They said the last of three pages was 8.8 inches wide when the maximum allowable width was 8.5 inches and therefore the whole PDF had been unable to go. (My scanner is a slotted bar through which I feed one sheet at a time by hand so I have never in five years gotten a paper through it perfectly square. Still I've not previously had problems faxing its PDFs through this service.)

Does anyone know of an email faxing service that would have taken judicial notice of the fact that the print on the page could easily be fit on an 8.5 by 11 page and fixed the problem for me? If I could find that service my problem would be solved. Otherwise I guess I'm looking at buying some sort of desktop scanner or a physical fax machine. I don't want to do either but the present situation is unacceptable. And of course fax machines are fast becoming dinosaurs so if I go that route it will remain viable only a few years since I won't indefinitely be able to buy the carbon paper rolls they use.

[Koss]

Tail wagging the dog

You are approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

Your scanner software should be able to re-size the image to 8.5 x 11. It's in the settings somewhere. If not, then you need a different application or a different scanner.

Yes, there probably are some virtual fax services that will auto-adjust the image size.

But you should be able to fix the problem on the front end.

BMK

[erchess]

TY Koss

I have a WorldocScan 400 and Scan2PDF software which came with it. Since I understand from a thread on this board that this is pretty good software maybe someone knows how I can learn and adjust what size the pdf is or at least how I might find out such as by emailing the company at a given address. If no one has anything concrete to suggest I can Google the company name.

It's news to me that scanner software has that capability. I would have guessed that only Adobe Acrobat or perhaps one of the Non Adobe programs that make and modify PDFs would alter a PDF.

It's also not out of the question for me to take my flat bed scanner out of moth balls but I would have to spend a couple of hours clearing clutter off a certain table, throwing much away and putting the rest in other places first. However this is the first time using my portable scanner has yielded unacceptable results.

[Gary2]

It's news to me that scanner software has that capability. I would have guessed that only Adobe Acrobat or perhaps one of the Non Adobe programs that make and modify PDFs would alter a PDF.

It's not a matter of modifying a PDF file. It's a matter of setting the size it generates before it even converts the scanned image into a PDF.

I've taken a look at the WorlddocScan user manual. Do you normally use the auto-detect feature (i.e. just put the document in the scanner and it scans automatically)? If so, try doing it manually, by running the worlddocscan program, clicking the Scan Single Document or Scan Multiple Document button, and setting the paper size in the popup that appears, as well as turning off the auto-detect check box. I can't tell from the manual whether the auto-detect feature overrides the manual size setting.

[appelman]

Have you considered the security aspects?

If you are a worry wart, consider that you are sending an unencrypted PDF to the fax provider.

[erchess]

TY Gary

Very helpful answer.