Faxing Software Review

In the films and TV series’ such as Star Trek, we are tantalized with the idea of future inventions such as the matter transporter and the replicator. The former of these takes an object or person and transmits it to another location within the vicinity. The latter goes even further and has the ability to manufacture on demand the majority of synthetic compounds and objects.

Going back to the transporter for a second, isn’t this exactly what the fax machine does? Takes a piece of paper and transports it to another location?

I guess I am being slightly disingenuous, because a fax machine does not move one object from one location to another, but copies it from one location to another. And if the fax machine was capable of doing this at a highly accurate level to any object, many items in the world would soon lose their value as people sought to duplicate original pieces of art and inflation would go through the roof as money was repeatedly copied on demand, again and again.

It initially sounds like a dream, but it would actually become a nightmare very quickly, very much like the scene from Bruce Almighty where the entire town suddenly wins the lottery and everyone gets nothing as a result.

But I guess the ability to actually move an object from one location to another would be extremely handy and would be the ultimate expression of the fax machine. But since the word fax is a short form of telefaxsimile, which means to make a copy at a distance, we couldn’t really use this word.

Could we even call it a transporter, as a transporter implies that there is some form of container?

Who knows? But one thing is for sure: when that day comes, when we can move from one place to another without traveling, I will be saying “Beam me up Scotty”!

And in the meantime, while we wait for the future to arrive, check out our comparison of what is available to us in the world of faxing software, click here now.

A fax machine is best thought of as a dedicated computer that controls an image scanner, a modem and a printer, acting as a middleman to control the inputs and outputs of these devices in order to complete a specific task, in this case the transmission of documents.

To this end, it is best to describe each component and then follow up with the control unit that makes it all possible.

The scanner is the name given to a device which scans text, barcodes, images, handwriting or any other organic or digitally determined image, converting it into a digitally stored piece of information. The scanners that were used in fax machines for the majority of the last 30 years were of the type known as drum scanners. These used a photo multiplier tube, type of vacuum tube which were extremely sensitive when it came to the detection of visible and ultraviolet light. Nowadays, scanners tend to use charge coupled devices, also known as a CCD, like those present within digital cameras.

The principal remains the same however. The scanner has an electrical charge pushed through it, and the imaging device converts the optical signals to electrical ones. This is then captured by the fax hardware.

As the image is scanned and converted into a digital file, the fax hardware engages the modem. The modem will use telephone circuits to connect to another modem and begin transmitting an audible analog signal. By modulating this signal, it is possible to transmit digital information to the modem at the other end of the line, which will then be demodulated and be fed to the receiving fax hardware. This modulation / demodulation process is where we get the name modem.

Finally, the fax machine passes the demodulated digital image file to the printer interface. This effectively reverses the scanning process, by passing a print head over blank paper in the positions that the optical scanner picked up areas of contrasted marking, then writing those marked areas back to the paper.

These systems are controlled by the fax hardware. It provides the logic and the flow control required for the information to pass seamlessly between the three interfaces. While the firmware and specific hardware involved may be propitiatory, fax hardware manufacturers adhere to a standard to enable all the fax machines all over the world to communicate with each other.

To check out our comparison of what is available to us in the world of faxing software, click here now.

There is a compelling argument that most businesses no longer require a fax machine.

The point is usually that, with the computer packages that many businesses buy from established retailers, there is usually a high-quality printer, a high-quality scanner and internet facilities that come bundled with the PC. When you combine all those facts together, it becomes possible to send any document as a scanned image, even ones that will not fit in the feeder tray of the usual fax machine, to any e-mail address in the world.

On top of that, it is easy to argue that there are far more people with e-mail addresses than there are people with fax machines!

Of course these are valid arguments. But the counter argument is that, as a business, we should always be striving to work with our customer in whatever way he or she sees fit. Yes, there are certain business areas that require faxes to be used as part of their daily operations, such as lawyers, recruitment professionals and government agencies. With these orgranizations, you have no choice.

But there are some businesses, including some very progressive and extremely large multinational conglomerates that I can think of, that like to deal with faxes. Whether this is a cultural thing, a technological thing or just out habit, if you have the ability to send and receive faxes, it makes doing business with them far easier when it comes to things like purchase orders and invoicing. In some cases, even if you can send an e-mail, the data security regulations mean that they prefer to receive faxes.

So the argument shouldn’t be about justifying why it is still necessary to have a fax machine. The argument is why businesses that complain about them haven’t found an alternative solution, especially considering all the very high-tech, hosted solutions that are available to us nowadays.