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Faxing in Windows XP
Published: October 21, 2002
By Sharon Crawford, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist
Editor's Note: Past articles by members of the online community
are archived for your use. The information may become outdated
as technology changes. For the most current information, please
search the Web site or post a question in the newsgroups.
If you're running Windows XP, you can
finally donate that old fax machine to a
local charity and use the desk space for
something more valuablelike a box of
doughnuts. An easy-to-use fax service is
built into Windows XP so you can send
and receive faxes from your computer.
There are a number of advantages to
moving to a Windows XP-based fax
system, the main one being no wasted
paper. No need to print documents before faxing them. You can
read, save, delete, or attach incoming faxes to e-mailall
without using a single piece of paper. Of course, you can print
them too.
Although you don't need a fax machine, you'll need a phone line,
a modem, and a scanner to send and receive faxes from your
computer. For faxing, the modem and scanner don't have to be
anything special. Even a 33.6 bps modem will dispatch a multi-
page letter in a minute or two. As to the scanner, faxes are sent
in black and white and usually at a default resolution of no better
than 150 X 150 dpi. Any working scanner can manage that.
Setting Up and Configuring Windows XP Fax
The fax service isn't automatically installed in Windows XP. To install the fax component:
Related Links Ask questions or discuss
this topic in the Windows
XP Expert Zone
Newsgroups Windows XP Printing &
Faxing Newsgroup Voice-over-IP Overview VoIP FAQ Knowledge Base Article:
How to Fax a Scanned
Document or Image in
Windows XP Knowledge Base Article:
Dialing Rules May Not Be
Applied to Tools Such as
Fax Knowledge Base Article:
How to Troubleshoot
Common Fax Problems eFax Faxaway Fax Modem Manufacturers
and Drivers Previous Columns by
Sharon Crawford
1. Open Control Panel, and click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click Add/Remove Windows Components. Select the Fax Services check box, and
then click Next. The Windows Component Wizard takes care of the rest.
Note: If you don't have a modem already installed, take care of that now. Make sure the
modem is connected to a phone line and the phone line is connected to a working jack.
(You'd be surprised how often folks overlook these details.)
After the fax component is installed, the next step is configuring it. You configure the Fax service
in the Fax Console, the center for faxing tasks. To configure the Fax Console:
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to Communications,
point to Fax, and then click Fax Console.
Go
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2. On the Tools menu in Fax Console, click Configure Fax, which starts the Fax
Configuration Wizard. Click Next to start configuring your fax information.
3. On the Sender Information page, include your name or your business name and your
fax number. Everything else on the page is optional.
4. On the Select Device for Sending or Receiving Faxes page, your modem will be
selected, unless you have more than one, in which case, select the right one. Specify
send and receive options, and whether you'll manually answer incoming faxes or answer
automatically when received.
5. On the Transmitting Subscriber Identification (TSID) and Called Subscriber
Identification (CSID) pages, enter your business name and fax number. These fields
really matter when you're running special fax routing software. Most software of this kind
depends on TSIDs to determine where to direct an incoming fax. See
How to Enable and
Configure the Fax Service in Windows XP
for more information.
6. On the Routing Options page, specify how incoming faxes will be handled. All faxes are
stored automatically in the Fax Console, but you can also print a copy or store a copy in a
local folder or on your network.
When you want to change or verify any of these settings, simply run the Fax Configuration
Wizard again. To open the wizard, on the Tools menu of the Fax Console, click Configure Fax.
Top of page

Sending Faxes from Your Computer
You can fax a document that's stored on your computer or you can scan a document and fax it
by sending to your fax printer. In this section, I'll explain how to fax a document from your
computer. If you can print a document, you can fax it.
The Windows XP Fax service uses the Windows Address Book (WAB) as its default address book
for fax numbers. When you install Outlook 2000 or Outlook 2002, the fax service switches to the
Outlook Address Book (OAB) as its source for fax addresses. So you don't need to maintain two
address booksjust one will do.
To fax a document stored on your computer:
1. On the File menu of the document, click Print.
2. In the Print or Print Setup dialog box, in the Printer name box, click Fax to open the
Send Fax Wizard. (When faxing from an Office program, on the File menu, point to
Send To, and then click Fax Recipient. An Office Fax Wizard asks for specific
information and then hands the process over to the Send Fax Wizard.)
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3. To supply the recipient's fax number, click Address Book, and select one or more
recipients just as if you were sending them an e-mail message.
4. If you've already set up Dialing Rules, skip ahead. If you haven't, click Dialing Rules. If
you need to dial an extra digit to get an outside line, or use a special carrier code, or dial
an area code even for local numbers, add those settings here, and then click OK to return
to the fax sending.

Very Important: Telephone numbers must be in the canonical form in which a U.S.
number would appear as +1 (626) 555-1212. If you use even a slightly different form
such as (626) 555-1212 or 1-626-555-1212, the dialing rules won't be applied and the
fax transmission will fail.
5. Select a cover page. Choose from the list or specify no cover page at all. Personally, I
forego cover sheets unless I'm sending to a big corporation where it might get lost or the
document needs some clarification. If you're into cover sheets, you can download
additional fax and transmission covers from the
Office Template Gallery
.
6. Specify when the fax should be sent as well as the fax's priority. Priority only matters if
you're stacking up a number of faxes to be sent at a particular time. In that case, the
order of sending will be determined by the priority you set.
7. Finally, you're presented with a screen recapping the details of the fax and offering a
chance to preview it. If the fax is a multi-page one, you'll be able to preview only the first
page.
If you're sending the fax right away, the Fax Monitor, shown below, will start when the dialing
does.
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Top of page

Faxing Scanned Documents
The second way to send a fax is to scan a document and then send it to your fax printer. The
software that came with your scanner can help you set up this kind of fax and send it directly to
your fax printer. However, you can also fax from a scanner using the tools in Windows XP:
1. Open Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, click Scanners and
Cameras, and then double-click the icon for your scanner to start the Scanner and
Camera Wizard.
2. On the Choose Scanning Preferences page, click Grayscale picture, and then click
Preview to start the scanner.

3. Provide a name and location for the scanned document.
4. Open the folder that contains the image file, right-click the image, and then click Print.
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5. Select the check box for the image to be faxed.
6. Select Fax as the printer you want to use.
When you finish the Photo Printing Wizard, the Send Fax Wizard opens and you proceed as
described in the procedure for sending a fax from your computer.
Top of page

Faxing from Outlook
To send faxes from Outlook, you have to add the Fax Transport Service as an e-mail account. To
add Fax Transport Services in Outlook 2002, follow these steps:
1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. Click Add a new e-mail account, and then click Next.
3. On the Server Type page, click Additional Server Types.
4. On the next page, Fax Mail Transport is selected. Click Next to finish adding the
account.
(For Outlook 2000, on the Tools menu, click Services, and add Fax Mail Transport there.)
To send a fax from Outlook, follow these steps:
1. On the Standard toolbar, click New.
2. In the blank message form, on the Standard toolbar, click Accounts, and then click Fax
Mail Transport.
3. Enter your message, click Send, and the fax modem will connect and transmit the fax
message.
You can't automatically have incoming faxes transferred to your Outlook Inbox when you're
using Windows XP. Received faxes can go only to the inbox of the Fax Console and to