subject: The Benefits Of Online Faxing You Probably Don't Know About [print this page] Okay, so you need to send a draft of a PowerPoint presentation to your new field salespeople, but they have not installed their Office software yet and only have e-mail and Internet Explorer on their personal laptops. How can you possibly show them what you are working on in this situation? What newer-than-new, super futuristic piece of hardware or software is on deck to solve this problem for you?
A fax.
You read that right. It is not anything brand new, but faxing has changed now that it has reached the Internet. In fact, the best Internet faxing technology has filters that will read all kinds of files that you attach to your fax, which you do from within your e-mail program or webmail. In this case, you would send an online fax specifically to take advantage of its ability to read the PowerPoint file and deliver it to either another online fax number, or a standalone fax machine. Either way, it will be in a format that can be viewed on screen and/or printed out, or that will output from your machine. Problem solved.
Amazing flexibility
Many people do not know that online faxing works this way. There is a great deal of confusion about what you can and cannot do with Internet faxing, much of it stirred up by those with vested interests in older technology. In addition, some low-end Internet fax providers want to bring the better firms down to their level, and misrepresent what the technology can do. It is important to get the facts and become aware of the benefits of online faxing you probably do not know about. The situation described above brings up a very important point, the fact that you can attach files from a wide range of software programs, and the recipient does not need these programs to view the fax. This is extremely handy.
Remember, not all online fax services are the same. You should ensure that any ones you are considering can handle all the file types you commonly work with. A good service will allow you to create a cover page by typing text into the message field of your outgoing e-mail, or skip the cover page by typing nothing. Then it is simply a matter of attaching your file, which will be converted during the faxing process into pages that can be viewed/printed on a computer or output from a fax machine.
Broad file support
As far as word processing, top services are able to convert and present Microsoft Word files (doc, docx), WordPerfect (wpd), Rich Text Format (rtf, rtfd), Microsoft Write (wri) and plain text (txt). These represent a substantial majority of all business users. Oh, and all of the following and foregoing should apply to Macintoshes, too, if you are dealing with a first-rate service.
Your top services will also be able to convert and present files from Microsoft Excel files (xls, xlsx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx), Microsoft Publisher (pub), Microsoft Visio (vsd) and HyperText Markup Language (htm, html). Even better, these first-tier fax services let you attach a wide range of image files, created by a huge assortment of programs from PrintShop to Photoshop. This includes all versions of Windows Bitmap files (bmp), the Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format (gif), Joint Photographers Expert Group (jpg, jpeg), Portable Network Graphics (png), Tagged Image File Format (tif, tiff) and Microsoft Office Document Imaging (mdi). You should also be able to attach any Adobe Portable Document Format file (pdf), and files saved as Adobe PostScript (ps, eps) from various applications.
Other benefits
Many people are surprised when they find out how very flexible and powerful the best online fax services are. Still, people are unaware or insufficiently impressed of other benefits. The fact you can send, receive, store, print, forward or delete faxes from within your e-mail account is a real time-saver, and it saves paper, too (saving a tree, or a few of them). Because it is based in e-mail, you can access your service and have total fax capability wherever in the world you happen to be, as long as you have a computer and an Internet connection.
The low monthly charges for the top services will seem even lower when you consider how much time and money you save you on fax machine supplies, long-distance bills and extra dedicated phone lines. Your convenience factor is off the charts, since you need no additional special software, hardware, modems or machines. You already have all you need with a computer and an Internet connection. Even more, it is an "always on" service that operates 24/7/365, whether your computer is on or not. You will not miss any faxes if the power goes out.
Bottom line
Convenience, low cost, flexibility, ease of use and efficiency are great selling points for online fax companies, and many firms make similar promises. As we said at the outset, the ones that really deliver on the promise are those that make it possible for you to send Excel documents to people who do not have Excel, and do it from an Internet caf in another country. These are some benefits you really should know about, and now you do!
by: Chris Haycox
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