Stupid, basic Mac OS X fax questions

rok

okay, so i need a fax machine. i have done without too long, and with an international move behind me, i would have loved one for all the documents i needed to send to and from people. the problem is that i have an innate distaste for spending money on what would amount to a crappy printer and a crappy scanner which sends data at 1996 speeds over the phone line. so i always talked myself out of it.



but now i think i need a solution. i was looking at laser faxes, but they all cost as much as a good laser printer. i will not do thermal again. no way. but then i thought... what if i just buy a decent scanner, and use the faxing capabilities that have been built-in to Mac OS X since Panther? sounds good, and my dualie-G4 has a modem port, so it should work, right?



my question... how do i set it up? can i simply jack into my phone lines at home, and so long as no one is using the phone, i can send a fax? or is there more specialized mojo i need to be aware of? if this works, this'll also give me a scanned copy (a GOOD scanned copy, no less) of every document i send, which i can file away, and print on my wife's really good lexmark.



so, anyway, i told you this was a stupid basic question thread, but i am forging into uncharted waters here, so any guidance would be appreciated.



thanks!

kuku

It's easier...then easy...



Plug in phone line.



bring up the thing you want to fax



Preess print.



Select fax, then put in standard information like number, and cover page, etc.

meelash

Yup, like Kuku said, it's super-easy and intuitive. Just two things to add:

1) If you put the number and name in your address book it will be much easier to resend in case you get a busy signal, etc. There's no recent numbers list in the fax dialog...

2) Since Tiger, Fax is under the "PDF" services button in the print dialog and not a separate printer like it used to be.



And you're correct you just plug into your phoneline. It's really that simple. There's some preferences you can set in Sys. Preferences I believe like dial out loud or not, etc.

rok

thanks guys. i guess i had suspected it would be fairly simple.



i was also discussing this with my wife, and i realized there will be times, though, when we need to fax a stack of documents (you'd be amazed at how much must be sent to various people when you move internationally...ugh), so i think i'd like to get a decent scanner that can also take an auto document feeder on the top. my wife will often need to OCR large documents she gets from other authors who only have a printed copy to send her, so it would be helpful to have such a thing anyway.



anyone have advice on such scanners?

rok

okay, just thought of a question... if i have my machine plugged into the phone jack to use faxing built-in to mac os x, what happens (if anything) if someone sends me a fax at that number? or is this whole "built-in" faxing a one way street?



thanks.



(edit: never mind. just realized that, while i usually accept that the built-in help sucks, it actually has answers to almost all of my questions. RTFM, i guess. )