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I recently purchased winfax pro and have two BIG questions. If I am receiving an incoming fax and my phone line is busy will it still accept the fax?
Second is will winfax know if it is an incoming fax and accept it or a voice call? How do I make sure I still receive my regular phone calls?
If your line is being used to send (or receive) a fax, and someone else calls the same line to send you a fax, they will get a busy signal. Unless, you have call waiting — which would cause the fax you are sending (or receiving) to fail. I would suggest you use *70 to disable call waiting (if you subscribe to this service) before sending or receiving a fax.
Also, WinFax cannot determine between fax and voice calls. If you have WinFax set to answer after a number of rings, it will always answer with a fax tone. Distinctive ring is an option to solve this problem, however, I don’t believe it will work with Windows XP.
Edited By Moderator on Feb. 06 2005 at 02:40
Distinctive ring does not work with windows XP PRO? Basically I need clients to fax me several pages of info a day and I will have them do it on my home line which is connected to my computer. But, if I’m on the phone I don’t want the fax to fail. How would I configure this to actually work the way I need it to? I thought about adding an additional line to my phone as a fax line but will it be recognized as a fax coming in or would I again need distinctive ring in which it doesn’t sound like that will work?? I may be better off purchasing a internet based fax service?? I don’t know what to do. Thanks for all of your help its truely appreciated. (I’m under the gun to have to figure this all out).
Amanda
will the call be routed if the phone line has one of those call routing boxes that can distinguish a incoming fax vs. voice call??
Amanda
@maldonado wrote:
Distinctive ring does not work with windows XP PRO? Basically I need clients to fax me several pages of info a day and I will have them do it on my home line which is connected to my computer. But, if I’m on the phone I don’t want the fax to fail. How would I configure this to actually work the way I need it to? I thought about adding an additional line to my phone as a fax line but will it be recognized as a fax coming in or would I again need distinctive ring in which it doesn’t sound like that will work?? I may be better off purchasing a internet based fax service?? I don’t know what to do. Thanks for all of your help its truely appreciated. (I’m under the gun to have to figure this all out).
Amanda
No, distinctive ring has been known NOT to work with Windows XP and WinFax. You can try, but it probably won’t work correctly.
Even if you did setup distinctive ring, it would not help you in what you want to accomplish. If you are on the phone (voice call) and sometime tries to send you a fax, it won’t get through (unless you hang up your call and allow the fax to be received) . Distincitive Ring does not give you a 2nd line, just a 2nd phone number that is really attached to your existing telephone number.
Adding an addition phone line might be expensive, an alternative is to get the FAX MAILBOX from Concord Fax. It allows anyone to fax you anytime, using a toll-free 1-800 number. You can then retrieve your faxes via Internet or WinFax anytime. I believe they charge $10.00 per month for this service, plus fax per page retreival fees. Check with them for specific details.
@maldonado wrote:
will the call be routed if the phone line has one of those call routing boxes that can distinguish a incoming fax vs. voice call??
Amanda
One of those boxes will work, but if you are on a voice call , it will NOT allow the fax to come in (they’ll get a busy signal if you don’t have call waiting enabled)
Sorry for all the questions it just that there are so many variables!! What if, I added another phone line for WINFAX PRO to receive faxes only and it was an 800#. That 800 line would have to be the line plugged into my computer what would be the problem with that? Would I somehow be charged by using the internet (I use comcast broadband)?? I know with comcast your line is freed up but I’m not sure if it still “accesses” it, I would think so if it requires a phone line to run it. The other option is to go with an efax service but the service that I found that sounds good ($3.95 a month unlimited pages) does not have my local area code but the clients I sign on won’t necessarilly all be in my area code either so no matter what it will be a problem for atleast one of my clients. So since the efax service has a long distance number I can put call forwarding on my line and have them fax to me and I can forward the call to the efax number or if it will work I can put distinctive ring on only their faxes and have distinctive ring forward only those faxes to the efax service. I’m sure that won’t work either but its a thought. No matter what I think to do I seem to find a hitch somewhere, either that or I way overanalyze things!! I’m probably confusing you now! ha, ha, THanks for the input!!!!!
Amanda
I think I may have it figured out. What if I added another land line that was an 800# dedicated fax line. Added an external fax modem to my computer that way I could receive faxes from the 800# and send through the regular line. Winfax also says in the manual that it wont receive if the computer is in sleep or standby. I know what sleep mode is but is standby when the screen saver is on?? Let me know if you think the above will work right. Thanks.
Amanda
Also as a side note if you had the 800# for incoming only and my home line for outgoing could you tell winfax that my home line is for outgoing only that way people calling my home line wont get a fax signal in their ear.
In reading an old forum someone mentioned a problem with constantly having to reset to auto receive faxes is this going to be another potential problem?
Will you be sending more faxes then receiving? or receiving more faxes?
You can probably just use a seperate fax line hooked up your computer. Use this for sending and receiving faxes. Have WinFax on autoreceive so it will receive faxes automatically when someone calls your 800 number.
Your regular phone line won’t be connected to your computer’s fax modem, so you don’t have to worry about someone calling and getting a fax tone in their ear.
Also, you do have a fax modem installed correct? Since WinFax does not send faxes with a “DSL” or “broadband” modem that you might have installed (Comcast Cable modem?)
I thought about adding a dedicated 800 fax number into the computer to receive faxes but if I send them through the computer that would also have to go over the 800 number, I was hoping I could receive on the 800 and send on my home number. I do have comcast, so I take it you can’t send through a comcast modem? It may be better to go with an efax service this is getting so complicated.
What is the major difference between receiving faxes direct and receiving them through winfax pro?
Amanda
@maldonado wrote:
I thought about adding a dedicated 800 fax number into the computer to receive faxes but if I send them through the computer that would also have to go over the 800 number, I was hoping I could receive on the 800 and send on my home number. I do have comcast, so I take it you can’t send through a comcast modem? It may be better to go with an efax service this is getting so complicated.
You need to have a fax modem installed in your PC for you to send and receive faxes with WinFax PRO. A Fax Modem is not the same as your Comcast Broadband modem for Internet. This modem is used to connect to the internet only, it cannot send regular faxes over the phone line.
Internet fax allows you to send a fax via the internet. With Internet fax you don’t need a “fax/modem” all you need is an internet connection. It is not the same as using WinFax because you are not actually sending the fax, you are simply sending the fax to someone else via the internet who uses a fax modem (connected to a phone line) to send the fax for you. Much like you walking to the local Kinko’s to send a fax. You pay them, They send it for you. Internet fax is the same thing, you use the internet to “send” the pages to someone who sends the fax for you. Of course this someone is a company that have this whole process automated so it is transparent & seamless to you. Companies like eFax, Concord Fax, etc. do this. With this type of service you don’t need a phone line and you can send and receive faxes as if you had a dedicated fax line.
@maldonado wrote:
What is the major difference between receiving faxes direct and receiving them through winfax pro?
Amanda
Receiving them direct where? into your inbox via email (through an internet fax service) or directly into a fax machine that prints out on paper?
The advantages of WinFax PRO is that you can fax from any program on your PC (Word, Excel, Internet Explorer etc.). Most people fax documents that originate from a computer, so having to print out documents and fax them on a regular fax machine is time consuming. WinFax PRO supports many other features such as fax merging (sending many faxes ) and fax editing / storing etc.
I think I’m being wishy washy, I am considering two options, or actually three to be specific.
1. e fax service
2. receive faxes through winfax
3. receive faxes through XP PRO directI think I have decided to not go through the e fax service. I just can’t decide if I should go through winfax or through XP PRO direct. The situation is I do medical billing and I would like the physicians to be able to fax me all the patient info to bill for them. My main purpose is to receive faxes but I will also send the occasional fax (which I heard in XP PRO and using winfax you can’t send faxes, only receive which I thought was odd). I want to get an 800# for faxing and a regular line in case a doctor is local I don’t want to be charged for them using the 800#. I would like to set it up so that I have two inbound fax #’s to receive faxes and send using my local number of course. Or the other option is to add the 800# to my local line but I don’t know if the phone company allows that or if it would even work in the way of setting up through the computer. Is this possible, and do I really need the winfax pro or is XP PRO fax feature going to suite my need? Sorry for all the questions I just don’t know what to do!!! Thanks again.
Amanda
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