Fax without a fax machine: eFax

Now, eFax lets you get and send faxes via e-mail, no fax machine or phone line required. By providing a seamless interface between every fax machine and every e-mail account in the world, eFax effectively bridges the gap between paper and the Internet. 

eFax Free enables the user to receive a limited number of faxes as easy-to-open e-mail attachments in their existing e-mail Inbox. Each user receives a unique, randomly assigned telephone number through which they can receive a limited number of faxes at no charge. 

eFax Plus
The paid subscription-based service, eFax Plus, builds upon the simplicity of eFax Free by allowing users to select their own eFax numbers, typically in their local geographic area. Numbers are available in more than 1,400 cities around the world, and toll-free numbers are available as well. eFax Plus users can also send faxes directly from their PCs or e-mail accounts (or the eFax Web site), providing a complete Internet fax solution. 

eFax's selection by Microsoft Corporation, as the featured Internet fax solution makes it easy for you.  With this integration, users of Microsoft Word can access and register for eFax by clicking "File", "Send To > Fax Recipient". In all other Microsoft Office XP applications, users can access and register for eFax by clicking "Tools", "Tools on the Web". 

US Patent No. 6,208,638, describes a method and apparatus for accepting an incoming message over a circuit switched network and transmitting it over a packet switched network. It allows both faxes and voice messages to be received without the end user needing either a fax machine or a voice-mail system. 

eFax.com, lets users choose a local or toll-free fax number in over 1,400 cities across the world to receive your faxes. Incoming faxes and voice-mail are routed from the chosen number to any e-mail address. 

How it works:

1. A fax is sent to you from your personal eFax number from anywhere.

2. eFax automatically converts the fax into a graphics file and sends it to your email address.

3. The email arrives at your computer with the eFax file as an attachment. You open it with the eFax Messenger software, by double clicking, and there it is.

With an eFax Plus account, send a fax in three different ways: 

Here's an example of how to send faxes from your email: Send a regular email to "faxnumber@efaxsend.com", with the document you wish to fax attached to the message. eFax will convert the attachment and fax it for you. eg. 13235556789@efaxsend.com 

Send faxes with eFax Messenger: Messenger makes it easy to manage your fax documents: 
Sign and annotate faxes digitally
Combine, delete, and change the order of pages
Add links to web pages or other eFax documents 
Send faxes from the Web: Send faxes from our website with a cover page and up to three documents from our easy-to-use web form. We support most every popular office and image file format.

eFax Messenger: Messenger lets you view and print your faxes, send faxes via your eFax Plus subscription, and annotate documents with text, highlights, and signatures

eFax delivers the documents to the personal email inboxes of the people that need to see them, while the traditional faxes sit in the interoffice mail outbox waiting for distribution to the proper person. Further, eFax makes it simple to create a group address that could accommodate a number of distribution points for each fax, while group faxing with a manual fax machine can be complicated and error prone.

eFax and the eFax Messenger software works with just about any major computer application file, which means you can send the file types listed below directly from your computer to any fax machine: 

Word Processing:

Microsoft Word Win: v. 95, 97, 2000, 2003 Mac: v. 4, 5.x, 95, 98 DOC 
Corel Word Perfect v. 5.x, 6, 7, 8, 9 WPD, WP5, WP6 
Lotus Word Pro v. 96, 97, 9.x LWP 
Rich Text Format All versions RTF 
Microsoft Windows Write All versions WRI 
Plain Text All versions TXT, DOC, LOG, ERR, C, CPP, H 

Graphics

Windows Bitmap All versions BMP 
Adope Photoshop v. 3.0 and above PSD 
Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format GIF87a, GIF89a GIF 
JPEG Joint Photography Experts Group All versions JPG, JPEG 
PC Paintbrush Graphics (PCX) All versions PCX 
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) All versions PNG 
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) All versions TIF, TIFF 
Amiga Interchange File Format (IFF) Raster Bitmap only IFF 
Word Perfect Graphics v. 2.0 and above WPG 
Truevision Targa Format All versions TGA 
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) All versions PDF 
Adobe Postscript All versions PS 
Encapsulated Postscript All versions EPS 
Visio Drawing v. 3 and above VSD 
CAD Drawing Exchange Format (DXF) All Autocad compatible versions DXF 

Spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel v. 5, 95, 97, 2000 XLS 
Lotus 1-2-3 v. 2, 3, 4, 5, 96, 97, 9.x 123, WK1, WK3, WK4 
Quattro Pro v. 6 and above QPW, WB1, WB2, WB3 
Comma Seperated Values Format All versions CSV 

Presentations
Microsoft PowerPoint v. 4 and above PPT 
Corel Presentations Slide Show v. 96 and above SHW 

Other
Microsoft Publisher v. 98, 2000 PUB 
Hypertext Markup Language Well formed, with base href tag required HTML 
eFax Messenger Document Format eFax Messenger EFX 
eFax Messenger Document Format j2 Messenger JFX 

System Requirements:
OS: Windows 98 / 2000 / Me / XP
File Size: 3.9MB download. 

Send faxes from your desktop, or fax directly from the Apple Print Dialog window in most applications. Integrate your Address Book to access recently used fax numbers quickly. View and print your received faxes. (For Mac OS 8 or 9,
System Requirements:
OS: Mac OS X 10.1 or newer
File Size: 1.1MB download. 

eFax Plus users who use Macintosh, Unix, Linux or Windows 3.x operating systems can send faxes through email and our easy WebFax interface 

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