Faxing with Mac OS X Panther
Date: Nov 24, 2004
One of the great new features that Apple added to Mac OS X in version 10.3 (Panther) is the ability to send and receive faxes. Although a Mac equipped with a fax/modem has always been able to send and receive faxes, third-party software is no longer necessary to do the job. Best of all, the faxing capabilities work seamlessly with Apple's Address Book application, making it very easy to send faxes to people in your address book. Just a few clicks does the job.
In this article, I'll explain how you can use Mac OS X and your internal fax/modem to fax documents to people. I'll also tell you how you can configure Mac OS X to answer the phone and receive faxes for you if you don't have a dedicated fax machine.
Get Connected
Before you can send or receive a fax, you must connect your Mac's modem port to a telephone line. You do this with a standard telephone cable.
I won't go into detail on this step. If you've ever connected a telephone to a jack on the wall, you already know enough to get this job done. But I do want to point out that the Ethernet port on your Mac looks a lot like a phone jack; it's just bigger. Make sure that you plug your telephone line into the modem port. It should be a snug fit. You'll hear a "snap!" when it's right.
If you only have one telephone line (like I do), you can use a line splitter from a store such as RadioShack to turn the single telephone jack in the wall into a double jack. Use one cable to plug in your phone and another cable to plug in your computer. Just remember that you won't be able to send or receive faxes while you're on the phone.
Sending a Fax
Sending a fax is almost as easy as printing. Really.
On your Mac, create or open a document that you want to send as a fax. For example, perhaps you've written a letter in Word and would prefer to send it by fax rather than mail it to its recipient. (Hey, a stamp costs 37 cents and a one-page fax takes less than a minute, so faxes can save money as well as time.)
Choose Print from the File menu in the program, or press Command-P. When the Print dialog box opens, it probably will look something like the one in Figure 1 (this one is from Word 2004).
Figure 1 The Print dialog box for a Word document on Mac OS X 10.3.
Click the Fax button. The Print dialog box changes to display fax options, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Clicking the Fax button in the Print dialog box displays the fax options.
Choose your fax/modem from the Modem drop-down list. The options will include your internal modem; if your computer is on a network or is Bluetooth enabled, you'll also get options for shared faxes or Bluetooth. For this example, I'm using my eMac's internal modem (see Figure 3).
Figure 3 Be sure to choose the correct modem from the pop-up menu.
The To field in the Print dialog box is where you enter the recipient's fax phone number. There are two ways to do this. One way is to simply type the phone number exactly as it should be dialed, as in Figure 4.
Another method is to type the name of someone in your address book who has a fax number. As you type, Mac OS X tries to match what you type with an address book entry. It displays the name and fax number, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 4 Enter a phone number the way it must be dialed. (No, this isn't a real fax number.)
Figure 5 You can enter the name of someone whose contact info in your address book includes a fax number.
If you want to send the fax to more than one person, type a comma after each phone number. A separate fax will be sent to each person.
Enter a subject for the fax in the Subject box. This text identifies the fax in the fax queue and appears in the subject line of a cover sheet, if you decide to include one (step 8 covers how to create a cover sheet).
If you must dial one or more digits to get an outside line, enter the appropriate digits in the Dialing Prefix box. For example, if you're faxing from an office and need to dial 9 to get an outside line, enter 9 in the box. The same rule applies if you're using your laptop in a hotel that requires you to dial 9 or 8 to get a regular dial tone.
NOTE
Don't use the Dialing Prefix box to enter 1 for a long-distance number.
If you want to include a cover page with the fax, select the Cover Page option and enter your message in the box beneath the option. The message will appear on the cover sheet along with the recipient info from the To field, your name, the date and time (including time zone), the subject from the Subject field, and the number of pages after the cover sheet.
CAUTION
Be careful when you type your cover page message! Pressing Enter/Return will "click" the Fax button and send your fax, possibly before you're ready.
When you're done specifying your fax setup, the Print dialog box might look like Figure 6.
Figure 6 Example of fax options that include cover page text.
Click Fax. The document is digitized and sent to the fax queue. Moments later, you'll hear a dial tone and some dialing as your computer sends the fax.
The Fax Queue and Beyond
The fax queue is like a printer queue, but for a fax/modem. You can open it by clicking its icon in the Dock (see Figure 7).
Figure 7 To open the fax queue, click the Internal Modem icon on the Dock.
As Figure 8 shows, the fax queue lists any faxes waiting to be sent and their current status. In this example, one fax is being sent. When it's finished, it disappears from the list.
Figure 8 A fax queue with one fax being sent.
The fax queue not only looks like a printer queue; it works like one. You can use the buttons at the top of the window to delete, hold, or resume a selected fax. Use the Stop Jobs button to stop all faxes; you'll then have to click the Start Jobs button that appears in its place to start faxing again. Pretty simple, no?
Oh, and in case you're wondering, faxes are automatically deleted from the fax queue after they're sent.
Receiving Faxes
You can set up your computer to receive a fax, too. You do that with Panther's new Print and Fax preferences pane. Follow these steps:
Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu to display the System Preferences window.
Click the Print & Fax button to display the Print & Fax preferences pane.
Click the Faxing button to display faxing options (see Figure 9).
Figure 9 Use the Faxing pane to set options for receiving faxes.
Select the option Receive Faxes on This Computer.
In the My Fax Number box, enter your fax phone number. (You should do this even if you don't receive faxes; Mac OS X uses this information in the header of your outgoing faxes.)
In the Answer After box, specify the number of times the phone should ring before your computer answers the phone to receive the fax.
Select other options as desired to determine what your computer should do with received faxes. You must choose at least one of these options:
Save to. Specify a folder in which you want to save incoming faxes.
Email to. Specify an address to which you want to email a copy of the fax.
Print on Printer. Specify a printer on which you want to print the fax.
When you're finished setting options, choose Quit System Preferences from the System Preferences menu.
When your computer receives a fax, there's no sound or other indication to let you know that a fax has arrived. Instead, your computer handles the incoming fax by following the instructions you provided in the preceding steps. For example, per the instructions I specified, my Mac saved the fax as a PDF file in the Faxes folder inside my Home folder, as shown in Figure 10. I can double-click that file to view the fax with Preview or Adobe Reader. Faxes remain in this folder until you delete them. My Mac also sent it to me as an attachment to an email message and printed it on my printer. (Normally, I would choose only one of those optionsprobably the printer.) Choose the method that makes sense in your work environment.
NOTE
One thing to keep in mind if you're subject to HIPAA or other privacy issues: Received faxes stay in the Faxes folder until you delete them. Because that folder is in your Home folder, only you (and the system administrator) have access to them.
Figure 10 You can find received faxes in the Faxes folder in your Home folder.
So now you know: With the capabilities built into your Mac, you can send and receive faxes with just a few clicks.