Email Fax Basics

Benefits of using an email to fax service in your business

Internet fax services, sometimes called fax over IP (Internet Protocol) services, take advantage of the ability to convert visual documents into a digital form and back again. This allows you to send and receive faxes over the Internet, either attached to an email or uploaded to a website. You may not need to print most faxes, but will simply view them on your computer screen.

Each service has different features and price structures, but email fax basics are similar across all providers. While each service will vary slightly, follow these steps when using IP fax services to send a fax:

1. Scan a paper document into your computer using a scanner or multi-function printer with scanning capability to fax a paper document;

2. Create a document on your computer and send it by attaching it to the email faxing website, after ensuring that it's the correct format;

3. And check for incoming faxes that arrive in your email box with the fax document attached.

 

Choose a service that offers send-only email fax service

To send an occasional fax, choose a service that offers only sending. Save time by sending right from your desktop and not having to walk to a machine in another office. This is also a good option if you are starting a business and want to save the initial cost of buying a machine specifically for faxes.
Try: Buy FaxIt Credit for the Sending Only plan at FaxIt Nice. It offers a free trial and several send-and-receive plans to choose from. Opt for the GreenFax.com send-only plan that lets you prepay to send faxes at a low price per page.

Look for email fax services that offer receive-only options

Since receiving digital faxes is similar to receiving voicemail, many companies offer a service that lets you receive faxes and voicemail attached to email. The faxes are an image file, usually viewable in your email application, and voicemails come in sound files you can play on your computer.
Try: Packetel offers a receive-only plan with a low monthly charge that lets you receive an unlimited number of faxes by email. Kall8 combines fax and voicemail, both of which you can receive in your email box.

Send a large amount of business faxes with a broadcast fax by email service

Whether you want to send faxes for marketing purposes or send or receive a large quantity of fax pages for your business, look for a plan that offers a large number of pages. The benefits of this type of service over using a traditional fax service include saving paper and the convenience of being able to send faxes without leaving your desk.
Try: The Fax Blasters program from Data Fabrication lets you send thousands of faxes in just a few minutes and has many price plans to fit your budget. The Fax Broadcast service from Protus offers many useful features, including support of popular file formats and scheduling capabilities.

 

• Many fax to email services offer a free trial period when you sign up. One good reason to try before you buy is to make sure you are comfortable converting the files to the type of file required to send over the Internet, usually PDF or TIFF formats.

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