Paperless office: Faxes

[equinecpa]

Of all the papers that come into my office -faxes seem to be the most commonly misplaced or overlooked documents. I'm really trying to automate my office as much as possible. I'm stuck on what to do with regard to faxes.

What do you in paperless offices use as your electronic fax solution? I see there are numerous subscription services but I'd rather avoid having a subscription service. I don't mind buying software, do you have any recommendations? I should also mention that I use distinctive ring for my fax line ( I can't justify the additional cost of a fax line for the number of faxes I receive).

I've started giving out my internet based fax number to clients but this is a bit cumbersome as I have to download the file and then open it in the fax software, then print to .pdf to save.

Any suggestions?

Carolyn

[ecb34691]

Go get the free e-fax. They come into you e-mail account and you can either print or store.

[lenboush]

Fax

We use maxemail. It's similar to efax but we like it better. We got it a couple of years ago so I can't remember the reasons we liked it better but at the time, we did review both. Anyway, all of our faxes come directly to my emial so I can print, save or delete as I see fit.

[RJM]

Use an old PC

Another way to handle it is to use an old PC directly hooked up to your fax machine, and use the Windows fax program, or a purchased program with more features. You receive all faxes on the PC when it is turned on, but print to the fax machine when the PC is turned off. Or, some fax machines can be hooked up to your LAN, and you can receive and file the faxes from any computer on the LAN. Also I think some new fax machines are coming out now with automatic storage on a USB memory stick, so you don't need to use a LAN.

[SunTaxMan]

"Paperless" Faxes

Let me think out loud and get your response.

I recently bought an HP 7410. It is a multipurpose machine, printer, scanner, fax. It even accepts digital camera memory chips and transfers photos into the PC.

I bought it for the multi-page, adf, duplex scanning and printing.

I have not hooked this up to my phone line yet, but I am assuming that incoming faxes can be set to print to any of the printers connected to the PC. One of those printers is "pdfFactory." Is there any reason I could not "print" the faxes to this and never have a paper fax?

[JohnH]

pdf Factory is Great

I use pdf Factory all the time. I have a frequent need to generate quotes & other correspondence in Excel & then convert it to pdf. I regularly do exactly what you said. Anything that can be displayed on the screen can be printed using the pdf Factory, and what will appear on your screen is a pdf of the document, which can then be renamed & saved. I also use it when I have a large pdf (such as a multi-page brochure) and I only want to extract one or two pages & save them in a separate pdf file.

Not sure where I first got it, but I think pdf Factory was included with pre-2007 versions of ATX.

[taxxcpa]

I use pdf Factory all the time. I have a frequent need to generate quotes & other correspondence in Excel & then convert it to pdf. I regularly do exactly what you said. Anything that can be displayed on the screen can be printed using the pdf Factory, and what will appear on your screen is a pdf of the document, which can then be renamed & saved. I also use it when I have a large pdf (such as a multi-page brochure) and I only want to extract one or two pages & save them in a separate pdf file.

Not sure where I first got it, but I think pdf Factory was included with pre-2007 versions of ATX.

Go to: http://www.fineprint.com/
You can download fineprint there. I bought it before ATX started providing it with the tax software (and later discontinued and switched to another, less effective PDF creator).

It was not expensive.

[Gretel]

I am interested in this subject as well. Does anyone use PDF typewriter? Is this a free program?