Printing and Saving the Cover Page
When you’ve finished working on a cover page, save it by clicking the Save button or by choosing File, Save. You can also just close the Cover Page Editor. If you’ve been working on a new cover page, you’ll be asked to give it a file name. You should store cover pages in your Windows folder. If you store them elsewhere, they won’t appear on the list of available cover pages.
To print a cover page, click the Print button or choose File, Print. This printout will probably look better than the cover page you send with your faxes, because a laser or inkjet printer has a higher resolution than a fax machine. So you may also want to test your cover page by sending it to a plain-paper fax machine or by using the "Getting a Rendered Copy of a Fax or Cover Page" technique described at the end of this chapter.
Sending Faxes with Microsoft Fax
Microsoft Fax offers four ways to send a fax:
from within Outlook
from within any Windows application
from any folder within Explorer or My Computer
from the Start menu, by choosing Programs, Accessories, Fax, Compose New Fax
Table 13.3 divides these different methods into two categories: fax wizard methods and e-mail message methods. The fax wizard methods use the Compose New Fax Wizard. The e-mail message methods use Outlook’s normal message form. Some techniques apply only when Outlook has already been loaded; these are marked in the table. Other methods are available at any time, whether or not Outlook is active on your system. If Outlook hasn’t been loaded, you may be prompted to specify a profile and to log on. Once the fax has been sent, Outlook unloads itself again.
Each set of methods has its advantages. For example, with the fax wizard methods, you can have a note begin on the cover page. With the e-mail message methods, any note begins on the second page, not on the cover page. Another important distinction is that you can get a delivery receipt only when you use one of the e-mail message methods.
Table 13.4 summarizes these methods’ different capabilities. You can use this table to help you decide how to send a fax.
When you send a fax via any of the fax wizard methods, the Compose New Fax wizard launches to walk you through these tasks:
change the dialing location (if you have more than one)
add recipients
select a cover page
set fax options, such as the time that the fax should be sent
enter a subject and cover page note
attach files, if desired
Using the Fax Addressing Wizard
When you use a fax wizard method, you see a dialog box for adding recipients for your fax (Figure 13.5). You can use any of the following methods to address the fax:
Click the Address Book button and choose recipients from the Address Book.
Enter a name in the To box, then click Add to List to make the Check Names function find that recipient in your Address Book.
Enter the name in the To box and add the country and fax number with both area/city code and local number, then click Add to List. This enters the fax number so that the current dialing location is used (see “Configuring Dialing Locations” in Chapter 2).
Enter the name in the To box. For Country, choose “(None—Dial as Entered,” which appears at the top list. Under Fax#, enter the number, exactly as you want it dialed, including any codes needed to access an outside line or turn off call waiting.
This dialog box is also available to help you address faxes when you compose them as e-mail messages. After you open the new message, choose Tools, Fax Addressing Wizard.
Setting Fax Options
Microsoft Fax lets you set certain options, such as the time that new faxes will be sent, as defaults for all faxes. You can override these options for any individual fax.
When using a fax wizard method, click the Options button on the dialog box where you select the cover page (Figure 13.6). When using an e-mail method, choose File, Send Options. In either case, you see the Send Options for this Message dialog box, shown in Figure 13.7. See “Other Message Defaults” in Chapter 7 for details about the “Time to send” and “Message format” options.
The Security button in Figure 13.7 is relevant only when you are sending a fax as a binary file (see the next section). We cover Microsoft Fax security in Chapter 20.
Sending a File
A special feature of Microsoft Fax is its ability to transmit the actual document, not just a rendered fax image. This approach, called binary file transfer (BFT), is possible when both the sender and the recipient are using a Class 1 fax modem and either Microsoft Fax or a compatible fax program.
Normally, you don’t have to do anything to use BFT to send a file. The transmission happens automatically as long as you have the default fax message format set to “Editable, if possible.” (See “Message Format” in Chapter 7.) There is, however, one situation in which you need to take a couple of extra steps — when you are sending a file that can’t be printed. This includes programs and shortcuts (.exe, .com, .bat, and .Ink files), archives (.zip files), and any other binary file that doesn’t have an associated program with a Print action (see “File Type Associations,” page 296). In this case, you must use the Send Options dialog box (see the previous section) to set the message format to “Editable only.” Otherwise, you will get a System Administrator message in your Inbox telling you that a fax format version of the file could not be created.
File Type Associations
What makes it possible for Microsoft Fax and other fax services to send attached documents as fax images is that Windows keeps a record of which application should be used to print different types of documents. If you watch the fax transmission process closely, you see each document opened in its associated application and printed. If Microsoft Fax can’t tell which application to use for the printing process, you’re likely to get a message that the fax was not deliverable.
Document types are defined by the extension used in the file name. Typically, .txt is used for plain text documents (e.g., Readme.txt), .doc for Microsoft Word documents, and so on. The command used to print the document is set up when the application is installed.
One way to test whether a document can be sent as an attachment to a fax is to drag the document to a regular printer in your Printers folder. If it prints OK, then it should fax OK. If it doesn’t print, then you may want to investigate the file type for that document. To view the file types your system recognizes, go to Explorer or My Computer and choose View, then Options, and switch to the File Types tab in the Options dialog box (Figure 13.A).
Each type of registered document is listed here, along with the extension(s) that type of document may use. In Figure 13.A, you can see that the .awd extension is used for Fax Viewer Documents.
To see which application will be used to print a document, select that file type, then click the Edit button. In the Actions list in the Edit File Type dialog box, double-click on Print to display the Editing Action for Type dialog box (Figure 13.B).
For the Fax Viewer Document type shown in Figure 13.B, the application is Imaging for Windows (C:\Windows\WangImg.Exe). This application, like many Windows programs, allows a command line switch of /p to print a document. The “%1” stands for the filename for the document. The quotation marks are needed to handle long filenames.
This is a relatively simple example of a Print action. Some Print actions, such as those for Microsoft Word, use dynamic data exchange (DDE) and cannot be entered easily by the user. It’s best to let the application setup program do the job of building the file types and actions.
Some fax software may require a Printto action, in addition to or instead of a Print action. The important thing to remember is this: If you don’t see a Print (or Printto) action in the Actions list, then you must send this type of document either by opening it and printing it to the Microsoft Fax printer driver, or by sending it as part of a BFT fax with the message format set to Editable Only.
What Happens When You Send a Fax
When you send a fax, Outlook goes through several steps to assemble your message and attachments in one or two different formats, then it dials each recipient and transmits the fax:
A version of the message and attachments is prepared in fax format, unless you have set the message format to “Editable only.” To prepare the fax format version, Outlook prints the message to the Microsoft Fax printer driver via WordPad (or via Word if you’re using WordMail as your e-mail editor) and prints any attachments to the same printer driver using their associated applications. (See “File Type Associations” above.)
A version of the message and attachments is prepared in e-mail format, unless you’ve sent to these recipients before and they can handle only the fax format.
If you’ve chosen to use a cover page, one is created for each recipient.
Each number on the recipient list is dialed in turn. If the number is busy or doesn’t answer, Outlook tries again, up to the number of retries you’ve specified. (See “Retries” in Chapter 7.)
After the fax has been transmitted to all recipients (or has failed for some but succeeded for the rest), the message is moved from the Outbox to the Sent Items folder.
If Outlook could not deliver the fax to one or more recipients, a System Administrator message appears in your Inbox giving you the reason for the failure(s) and the opportunity to resend the fax to only those recipients who didn’t receive it the first time. (See “Resending a Failed Fax” later in this chapter.)
Special Note: You may be tempted to try to use Tools, Check for New Mail to send a fax immediately. As obvious as that option might seem, it doesn’t work. In fact, Check for New Mail has no effect at all on faxes.
If your active fax modem is on a network fax server but you’re not connected to the network or the server is down when you create a message, then that fax stays in your Outbox. Once you can reconnect to the server, you need to restart Outlook to queue your fax to the server (see the next section for information about viewing the fax queue).
If you want to monitor the progress of your fax, double-click on the fax machine icon in the system tray at the right side of the Windows taskbar to bring up the Microsoft Fax Status dialog box, shown in Figure 13.8. This dialog box also has a Hang Up button you can use to abort a fax transmission.
You can have the Fax Status dialog box pop up automatically whenever it’s processing a fax. In the Fax Status dialog box, choose Options, Display When Active. Or, right-click the fax machine icon in the taskbar system tray, then choose Display When Active.
Viewing the Fax Queue
To see the faxes that are waiting to be sent, from the Outlook menu, choose Tools, Microsoft Fax Tools, Show Outgoing Faxes. You can also double-click on the outgoing fax icon (Figure 13.9) in the system tray on the Windows taskbar. The Outgoing Faxes dialog box (Figure 13.10) looks a lot like a printer queue.
In the Outgoing Faxes dialog box, the Sender column distinguishes faxes sent by different users. This column lists the computer name of the workstation from which each fax was sent, not the user who sent it. To cancel a fax from the Outgoing Faxes dialog box, select the fax you want to cancel, then choose File, Cancel Fax. You can also cancel a fax by deleting it from the Outbox.
Resending a Failed Fax
If a fax is not successfully transmitted to all users, Outlook places a System Administrator message in your Inbox with a reason for each failed transmission.
To resend a failed fax,
Open the System Administrator message.
Click Send Again. A copy of the fax opens, but with only those addresses that didn’t receive the fax the first time you sent it.
Make any needed changes in the fax addresses. (When you resend a fax, you are allowed to change only the addresses, not the subject or the body of the message.)
Click Send to resend the fax.
Keeping Track of Sent Faxes
Unlike many fax programs, Microsoft Fax does not maintain a log of fax transmissions. It also does not keep a copy of every rendered fax image — only those created by printing to the Microsoft Fax printer driver; and even those do not include the rendered cover page.
When you open a sent fax from the Sent Items folder, it looks like an ordinary e-mail message, with any attachments embedded in the message. If this is a fax generated by printing to the Microsoft Fax printer driver, the attachment is an .awd file.
At least Microsoft Fax lets you know when things go wrong with your fax. As described in the previous section, if a fax can’t be successfully transmitted, you get a System Administrator message in your Inbox advising you of the problem.
There is a way to get notification of successful faxes, but the method has a tradeoff. If you create your fax by using Compose, New Mail Message rather than by using Compose, New Fax (or printing to the Microsoft Fax printer), you can choose “Tell me when this message has been delivered” on the Options tab of the message. When the fax has been sent, a System Administrator message arrives in your Inbox to notify you that the fax was delivered. The tradeoff, of course, is that you can’t include a note on the cover page of a fax that you create with Compose, New Mail Message. Still, for many people, getting a delivery receipt is more important.
Receiving Faxes
For you to receive a fax with the Microsoft Fax service, Outlook must be running. This bears repeating because it’s the most common source of confusion about receiving faxes: You must load Outlook before you can receive a fax with Microsoft Fax. (See "For More Information" at the end of the chapter for details about a small utility that will load just enough of Outlook to receive faxes.)
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