Dumb Question Re: Printer Fax Number

[jakeny]

I just bought a new Epson printer and it has a fax built in.

I actually need to use it this week for something, but am confused as to what I should set the fax number to be.

My apartment has a landline phone number. Would my fax number be the same as my landline? My printer wants me to designate a fax number for the fax.

I know on business cards, you always see that a company's fax number is different from their voice line.

But, if I only have ONE landline at home, then what "other" number would I use? Confused at the moment. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!!

 

[~mr mixx~]

What does your manual say about using a fax # ?

I'm not that keen on using printers since I never owned one that had a fax number.

 

[pete.i]

If you are ggoing to use the same line for your fax as your telephone then your fax number will be the same as your telephone number. There are obvious disadvantages to using a fax machine on the same line as your telephone. You can set the number of rings that your fax machine requires before it will answer a recieved fax so providing you have caller id on your phone you will know if it's a fax or a phone call. Most people have a seperate line for their fax machine. That way a fax goes to your fax machine and a telephone call goes to your phone on the other line. No confusion then. Down side, of course is extra cost fo the extra telephone line. The other problem you MAY encounter is that the tones used for your broadband might interfere with recieving a fax. This shouldn't happen of course if your broadband filter is good.

To be honest with the advent of email and scanners fax machines are pretty much not used now in this country. I had one years ago but I wouldn't use one these days.

 

[strollin]

My printer has built-in FAX capabilities but I've never connected a phone line to it. The few FAXes I send and receive can be done without a dedicated FAX machine. I personally use a service called PamFAX to send faxes and have a free eFAX number for receiving faxes.

However, to answer the OP's question, your FAX number is whatever the number is of the phone line you plug the FAX machine into.

 

[Technician1]

We use our canon mx 922 all in one as our fax machine too, I only send faxes from it, not receive them, I get people to send me .pdfs in an email attachment to receive data and text.
When my wife does contract work, she faxes in her hours. I use it to fax info to government agencies that will not accept email attachments like the assessors office, dept. of records, etc.
A lot of businesses refuse any email with an attachment.

To receive a fax you just set it up to answer after a certain number of rings.

 

[Suicidal Fish]

You could join the rest of us in 2016 and use email?

 

[root]

if it is plugged into the same phone line then yes, your Fax and Phone will share a number.

Fax isn't dead just yet, there are still plenty of companies that are using it for business.

 

[cb600fshornet]

You could join the rest of us in 2016 and use email?

That's soooo last decade, surely we should be... snapchatting it or something?

Out of interest though, why fax? Some sort of legal constraints? Could you use a scanner instead?

 

[Technician1]

That's soooo last decade, surely we should be... snapchatting it or something?

Out of interest though, why fax? Some sort of legal constraints? Could you use a scanner instead?

To fax a paper document it has to be scanned, so yeah you use a scanner to digitize the data and then transmit it to the recipients printer.
You could email the document to their printer, but most agencies either don't yet have the ability on their end or want to expose a printer to the internet.

I can send a document to my printer over the internet and it will print what I send it from anywhere. It's not an address I give out because I don't want some fool sending me porn or wasting my ink.

 

[strollin]

... I can send a document to my printer over the internet and it will print what I send it from anywhere. It's not an address I give out because I don't want some fool sending me porn or wasting my ink.

You can actually do something very similar with any printer that's connected to a computer using Google Cloud Print service. It's a server that assigns an email address to you and when a document is emailed to that address, it is downloaded to your computer and then printed to your printer.