Automatic vs. Manual Reception
You can have Microsoft Fax automatically answer every incoming call to your modem, or you can manually choose which calls to answer. The quickest way to change this setting is to right-click on the fax icon on the Windows taskbar (see Figure 13.9), then choose Modem Properties to display the Fax Modem Properties dialog box shown in Figure 13.11. Another way to get to these properties is from within Outlook; choose Tools, Microsoft Fax Tools, Options, then switch to the Modem tab, select the modem, and click the Properties button. We discussed these fax modem settings in detail under “Modem Properties” in Chapter 7.
Special Note: Under normal circumstances, a modem cannot automatically handle both incoming Microsoft Fax calls and incoming data calls. Microsoft Phone and Operator, which come with certain modems supporting the Unimodem V specification, are a pair of programs that work together to allow your phone to discriminate between voice, data, and fax calls.
If the answer mode is set to “Answer after X rings” (minimum 2), then Microsoft Fax will answer any incoming call to your modem without further intervention. With “manual” as the answer mode, any time a call comes in, a dialog box (Figure 13.12) pops up asking whether you want Microsoft Fax to answer the call. Click Yes to answer or No to ignore the call.
You can still receive faxes if you have the Answer mode set to “Don’t answer.” Of course, you’ll need some way to know that a call is coming in; perhaps the modem shares a line with a regular handset that rings. When you hear the ring, right-click the fax modem icon on the taskbar, then choose “Answer now.”
It’s quite common to switch back and forth between “Answer after X rings” (or “Manual,” depending on your preference) and “Don’t answer.” Older Windows communications programs can’t dial out except when Don’t Answer is set.
As a fax comes in, you can watch its progress in the Microsoft Fax Status dialog box (Figure 13.13), just as you might monitor an outgoing fax transmission.
A moment or two after the sending fax machine has hung up, the fax appears in your Inbox. If you have Outlook set up to notify you of new messages, you’ll hear the new-mail-alert sound or see the pop-up message.
Requesting a Fax
Microsoft Fax can also be configured to retrieve a fax from an automated fax retrieval service (often called a fax-back service). There are two ways to do this, depending on the capabilities of the retrieval service: with a wizard and manually.
You can use the wizard only if you are dialing in to a service with just one document available or with a library of documents that can be identified by title. Many fax-back services require you to dial in from a fax machine, then enter a series of numbers to select one or more faxes to receive. Microsoft Fax supports this type of retrieval, too, as you’ll see.
Using the Request a Fax Wizard
To launch the Request a Fax Wizard, follow these steps:
Click the Start button, then choose Programs, Accessories, Fax, Request a Fax. The dialog box shown in Figure 13.14 appears.
In most cases, you’ll choose “Retrieve whatever is available.” (I have yet to encounter a fax-back service where you could retrieve documents by name with Microsoft Fax. If you find one, let me know.) Then click Next to continue.
Enter the phone number for the fax retrieval service in the next dialog box, then click Next to continue.
In the next dialog box, select when you want to retrieve the fax. Here are your choices:
as soon as possible
when phone rates are discounted
a specific time
Click Next to continue, then Finish to complete the entry of the fax retrieval request.
If you choose to retrieve the fax as soon as possible, the call is made right away, with Outlook starting automatically if it isn’t already running. However, if you choose to retrieve the fax during the discount rate period or at a specific time, you must make sure that Outlook is loaded by the time the fax request occurs. If you quit Outlook before the time for the fax request, the call to retrieve the fax is not made. The fax request does remain in the Outbox, however, and Outlook tries to fulfill the request the next time you run Outlook.
Retrieving a Fax Manually
Fax-back services often let you call on your regular phone, select one or more documents, then specify a fax number to have the documents sent to. This process is sometimes known as two-call retrieval. There’s also a one-call technique, in which you dial in from the fax machine and get the documents as part of the same call. Microsoft Fax supports this, as long as you have a regular handset on the same line as your fax modem. Here’s how to use the one-call approach:
Make sure Outlook is running.
Dial the fax service with your regular phone and handset.
Follow the instructions you hear, entering the codes needed to select one or more documents.
When the fax service tells you to push the start or connect button on the fax machine, right-click the fax icon on the taskbar and choose “Answer now.”
When you hear the fax handshake tones from both modems (yours and the fax service’s), hang up the regular phone handset.
You can monitor the fax reception progress just as you would with a normal fax.
Using Fax Viewer
The Fax Viewer program included with Windows 95 for use with Microsoft Fax handles Microsoft Fax .awd files exclusively. (Imaging for Windows 95, covered in the next section, also can open .awd files.)
When you open a fax in Fax Viewer, the fax is zoomed in to 25 percent of its size so that it fills the width of the Fax Viewer window. The first order of business is to get a better view of the image. You may want to maximize the Fax Viewer window to have more room in which to view the fax, then choose View, Thumbnails or click the Thumbnails button to display thumbnail images to browse the pages of a multipage fax. Finally, choose Zoom, Fit Width to get a good view of the fax (Figure 13.15).
Table 13.5 summarizes the buttons available in the Fax Viewer. The Previous Page and Next Page buttons are found on the bottom of the scroll bar on the right side of the Fax Viewer, and the others are on the toolbar along the top.
In addition to Fit Width, which is probably the most popular zoom setting, two other zoom levels are available on the Zoom menu:
Fit Height: Resize the fax image so it fills the height of the Fax Viewer window
Fit Both: Resize the fax image to display the entire fax
Once you’ve opened a fax in Fax Viewer, you can print it, save it, or copy it. Table 13.6 lists these actions and the steps required to use them.
After you copy all or part of a fax page to the clipboard, you can paste it into another application (e.g., Word) for annotations.
If you have problems viewing or printing faxes with Fax Viewer, try Imaging for Windows instead.
Using Imaging for Windows
Imaging for Windows is a graphics program available in four versions:
as part of the Windows NT 4.0 operating system
as part of the Windows 95 operating system, beginning with OEM Service Release 2
as a free update for Windows 95 that can be downloaded from http://www.eastmansoftware.com
as a commercial program called Imaging for Windows Professional, which includes additional features, such as OCR, automatic printing, and forwarding of incoming faxes
Once you install Imaging, it becomes the default program for viewing most graphics files, including .awd, .dcx, and .tif fax files. Imaging is an excellent replacement for the Windows 95 Fax Viewer and many other fax viewers. It includes annotations, allows you to export faxes as .tif files, and supports the use of scanners to create new faxes. Many users also report better quality printouts of faxes from Imaging.
Note that the Windows NT version of Imaging does not support the Microsoft Fax .awd format. Under “Tips and Tricks” at the end of this chapter, you’ll find a procedure for copying Fax Viewer from a Windows 95 machine to a Windows NT system, so that a Windows NT user can view faxes received via Microsoft Fax and forwarded by a Windows 95 user.
Click on the icon for any incoming fax to view it in Imaging. When you start Imaging, it always defaults to a view of one page. You can see a page and thumbnails or just thumbnails by using the appropriate buttons or the corresponding choices on the View menu.
Imaging improves the appearance of most faxes by displaying them in grayscale (see Figure 13.16) rather than in stark black and white. You can turn this setting on and off with View, Scale to Gray.
As you can see in Table 13.7, the toolbar buttons for Imaging are quite similar to those for Fax Viewer.
Imaging Zoom Settings
Imaging’s Zoom menu includes a wider range of settings than Fax Viewer has:
Fit to Height: Resize the image so it fills the height of the Imaging window
Fit to Width: Resize the image so it fills the width of the Imaging window
Best Fit: Resize the image to display the entire fax
Actual Size: Approximate the size of the fax when it will be printed (usually runs large)
25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 200%, 400%: Resize the image to the specified zoom percentage
Custom: Resize the image to a custom zoom percentage
There’s also a very useful Zoom to Selection setting. Here’s how to use this setting to zero in on a particular part of a fax:
If the current pointer is the “drag” hand, click the Select button to activate the selection crosshairs pointer.
Drag a rectangle on the area you want to view more closely.
Choose Zoom, Zoom to Selection, or click the Zoom to Selection button.
Unlike Fax Viewer, Imaging allows you to set a preferred zoom setting, and it saves it between sessions. To set the default zoom setting,
Choose View, Options, General.
Under Open documents zoomed to (Figure 13.17), choose the way you’d like to have faxes appear when you first open them.
Click OK.
Imaging Annotations
You may receive a fax that you want to pass along to someone else, marked to emphasize the important points. Or perhaps a form was faxed to you that needs to be filled out and returned. For these tasks, Imaging provides a rich collection of annotation tools.
To display the toolbox, shown in Figure 13.18, choose Annotation, Show Annotation Toolbox.
To add an annotation, select any tool (other than the selection pointer), then click and drag the pointer to create an annotation of the desired size and shape.
For the text tools — Attach-A-Note, Text, and Text from File — a pop-up dialog box appears to let you enter text or select a file whose text will be added to the fax. To edit the text of an existing annotation, activate the Select Annotations pointer, then right-click on the annotation and choose Edit.
To change font, color, transparency, line thickness, or other properties of an annotation, activate the Select Annotations pointer, then right-click on the annotation and choose Properties.
You can add your own boilerplate text and images, such as a signature, to the rubber stamp tools. First, choose Annotations, Rubber Stamps to display the Rubber Stamp Properties dialog box (Figure 13.19).
Then, to create a new stamp with boilerplate text, follow these steps:
Choose Create Text.
In the Create Text Rubber Stamp dialog box (Figure 13.20), enter the Stamp name as you want it to appear on the list of available stamps.
Enter the Stamp text.
If you want to include the current date on your stamp, click the Date button to insert "%x," which will be filled with the date when you use the stamp.
If you want the current time on your stamp, click the Time button to insert “%X.”
Use the Font button to set the font and color for the stamp.
Click OK to finish creating the stamp.
Imaging can also use virtually any graphic image as a stamp. For example, you might scan or fax a copy of your own signature, then save that image to a file and make a stamp out of it. To create a new stamp from an existing image file,
In the Rubber Stamp Properties dialog box (Figure 13.19), choose Create Image.
In the Create Image Rubber Stamp dialog box (Figure 13.21), enter the Stamp name as you want it to appear on the list of available stamps.
Either enter the graphic’s file name under Image Stamp File or click the Browse button to find it on your system.
Click OK to finish creating the stamp.
Text and image stamps that you create are listed on the stamp list that pops up when you select the rubber stamp annotation tool, as seen in Figure 13.19.
If you use File, Save to save an incoming fax after adding annotations, the annotations are made a permanent part of that fax. If you want the option of removing the annotations later, use File, Save As to save the fax to your system as a separate .tif file. This preserves the original of the incoming fax in your Inbox without annotations. Additionally, annotations in a .tif file can be edited and even removed at a later time.
Troubleshooting Microsoft Fax
A few known problems are associated with Microsoft Fax. Hopefully, they will be resolved in future versions of Outlook. In the meantime, we offer you some techniques for working around common troubles.
Order Your SQL Fundamentals CD Today! Learn how to use SQL Server, understand Office integration techniques and dive into the essentials of SQL Express and Visual Basic with this free SQL Fundamentals CD.
You've Deployed SharePoint...Now What? This one-day free online conference delivers the technical knowledge needed to kick MOSS up a notch. In one information-packed day, independent SharePoint experts will present practical, real-world information and provide take-away, ready-to-use solutions
What Would You Do If You Ran Microsoft? ITTV's 2008 inaugural video contest, "If I Ran Microsoft..." is your chance to tell it like it is. Be goofy or be serious, but don"t miss this chance to have fun, win prizes, and go viral in a major way.
Maximize Your SharePoint Investment This web seminar discusses how true bi-directional replication of SharePoint content from one server to another enables branch offices to maintain access to current SharePoint content.
Windows IT Pro
Register
