Chapter 6
Receiving Faxes

Receiving faxes is very easy and requires little effort on your part. FaxTalk Plus handles most of the work for you. With FaxTalk Plus you can receive faxes while you work in other Windows applications. To receive a fax with FaxTalk Plus, all you have to do is to have your computer and fax modem turned on, and have FaxTalk Plus for Windows running with the Auto Answer option turned on.

You can receive faxes manually or automatically while working in other applications. Normally you will want to receive faxes automatically in the background. This way your work is not interrupted. The fax is received "behind the scenes" and your computer still responds to your commands. There are times though, when you may want to receive faxes manually, such as when you want to use your phone to take voice calls as well as faxes.

Received faxes are stored in the InBox. Each InBox entry contains the time, date, length, and type of file received.

Receiving a Fax While Working in Windows
When you are in the Windows environment, simply launch FaxTalk Plus for Windows. You can now proceed to work in whichever Windows application you choose.

When the phone rings, FaxTalk Plus will automatically answer the phone after the preset number of rings if you selected any of the Auto Answer options during the configuration portion of the FaxTalk Plus installation. If you want to turn on any of the Auto Answer options, choose the Configure > Answer command.

Figure 6-1. Answer Configuration Dialog Box

When the phone rings, FaxTalk Plus will automatically answer the phone after the preset number of rings if you have turned on Auto Answer. If you want to turn the Auto Answer option on now, choose the Configure > Answer command. Click on the checkbox next to Auto Answer. The Auto Answer After_Rings option specifies how many times you want the phone to ring before FaxTalk Plus answers the line.

If you have Distinctive Ring service from your phone company you can select FaxTalk Plus to answer specific lines. For more information about Distinctive Ring support in FaxTalk Plus see the Distinctive Ring section later in this chapter.

You can also have FaxTalk Plus announce incoming calls with a dialog box or a .WAV file. For more information see the When Phone Rings section later in this chapter.

You can specify the combination of keys you want to use as a Hot Key to have FaxTalk Plus answer the line while you are working in other applications.

Announcing Received Faxes
When FaxTalk Plus receives the fax document it can flash the FaxTalk Plus icon at the bottom of the desktop, beep at preset intervals, play a .WAV file to an Multimedia device, or immediately print the fax, depending on which Announce options you selected in the Configure > Answer dialog box. You can also forward faxes and be notified by fax or pager when new faxes are received (more information about these features can be found later in this chapter). While working in FaxTalk Plus you will also see changes in the FaxTalk Plus Status bar information.

You can simply continue working until you get time to review the received fax. The fax document is stored in the InBox until you are ready to view, save, delete, or print the document.

Fax Notification
You can set the FaxTalk Plus notification parameters to let you know when a new fax is received or whether the incoming transmission failed, even when you are not near your computer. To set the notification parameters, choose Configure > Notify. FaxTalk Plus can notify you of incoming faxes in two ways, via fax or beeper (Figure 6-2).

Figure 6-2. Notify Configuration Dialog Box

If you want FaxTalk Plus to notify by Fax, click the Notify of Received faxes checkbox under By Fax. If you also want to be notified of failures by fax, click the Notify of Failure check box as well. If you want FaxTalk Plus to forward you newly received faxes to another fax machine, click the Forward Faxes checkbox, and enter the number of the desired fax machine. If you choose not to have your faxes forwarded to you, FaxTalk Plus just sends a coversheet telling how many new faxes have been received. You can specify which coversheet you want FaxTalk Plus to use when it notifies you. You can view, edit or delete the selected coversheet.

If you want FaxTalk Plus to notify by paging you, click the Notify of Received faxes checkbox under By Pager. FaxTalk Plus can also notify you of receive transmission failures via pager if you click the Notify of Failure checkbox. You must enter the pager number you would like FaxTalk Plus to call in the Pager Number text box.

If your phone system requires it, include in your pager number pauses, etc. Use "," to indicate a pause, "%" to indicate a hang-up, and "@W" to tell the system to wait for a secondary dial tone. If your pager accepts the * character (some pagers use a * to cancel), you can use it as a "separator" (see the example, below). After your pager number, enter the code for the type of notification you would like to receive. Entering an "@M" displays the number of new messages, entering an "@F" displays the number of new faxes received.

For example: Enter "5551212,,,5553232**@M**@F#%" in the pager number field to have FaxTalk Plus call your pager (number 555-1212), pause for the required amount of time, display your number so you know it is your PC paging you (555-3232), display the number of new messages and new faxes received, and hang up. Remember, not all pagers will accept * as a valid character.

Distinctive Ring
If the Distinctive Ring phone service is available in your area and you subscribe to it, you can select the Distinctive Ring option to allow more than one phone number to call into the same phone line. Incoming calls can be identified as to which phone number by the ring length and timing of the ring.

If you enable this option, click the Configure button and specify how FaxTalk Plus should answer each line. Click the checkbox next to each line you plan to use (up to 4 lines), and select the type of transmission (Fax or Data Host Mode) that corresponds with that line. If your modem uses non-standard ring messages, click the Setup button from the Configure Distinctive Ring Answer dialog box to modify the standard settings.

Note: Distinctive Ring requires support from the modem hardware. Verify that your modem supports Distinctive Ring capability before enabling Distinctive Ring in FaxTalk Plus.

When Phone Rings
Use the When Phone Rings option to specify how FaxTalk Plus should notify you whenever a call is received at your computer. You can configure FaxTalk Plus to display a pop up message box, or play a sound that you select whenever a call is received. To configure the pop up window parameters, click the Configure button next to When Phone Rings.

To configure the Pop up options:

1. Click the Pop up option to display the pop up message box when you receive a call.
2. Click the sound check box to have your system notify you of incoming calls by playing a sound you select.
3. You change the sound that is played by clicking the down arrow next to the Sound option. You can add additional sounds by clicking the folder next to the Sound option to display the Open Dialog Box. Select the sound and click OK.
4. To test the sound, click the Test button.

Checking the InBox for New Faxes
All new faxes are stored in the InBox. To see the list of received faxes, double-click on the InBox icon at the bottom of the FaxTalk Plus program window.

The received faxes are listed in the order you specify using the Edit > Sort option. From the InBox window you can click on an entry to highlight it, then view, save or print the fax. You can also press Enter or double-click on the transaction to automatically open the Fax Viewer window displaying the highlighted fax.

Viewing Received Faxes
From the InBox window, double-click on the desired entry or click on the View button located under the menu bar.

When you have finished viewing the received fax files, close the Viewer window by double-clicking the Control button in the upper left corner, or by selecting the File > Exit command.

Printing Received Faxes
FaxTalk Plus can be configured to automatically print faxes when they are received. You can also print them from the InBox by simply highlighting the file entry from the InBox, and clicking on the Print button located under the FaxTalk Plus menu bar.

If a print error (i.e., Out of paper) is encountered when you have several files queued to print, the print queue is cleared until the next print command is issued. You can print any faxes cleared from the queue before printing manually from the InBox or the Fax Viewer windows.

Saving Received Faxes
To store a fax file that has been received, highlight the desired file entry from the InBox and select the File > Save As. Type the file name. The default subdirectory is the File Cabinet. Select another directory and/or drive if you wish to store the fax somewhere else.

You can save files in .FAX, PCX, or BMP formats. If you are saving the file in .FAX format, you can click the Options button to enter a keyword or comment. The text can be used with the Edit > Find command to locate this fax file. Separate the keywords using a comma.

Retrieving Received Faxes Remotely using Polling
You can have FaxTalk Plus automatically place any newly received faxes on your polling list allowing you to have access to these files when you are away from your computer for extended periods of time. To enable AutoPoll for retrieving faxes, choose the Configure > Polling command. Click the check box next to AutoPoll.

Your polling list grows each time you receive a fax with Auto Polling enabled. You need to manually remove the received faxes from the Polling list once you return to your computer. The files remain in the InBox until they are removed manually.

Receiving Binary Files
With FaxTalk Plus for Windows you also have the capability to receive binary files as well as fax files from other computers. Unlike a fax file, binary files are actual computer files not just a picture of a document. A binary transfer file can consist of a word processing document, an entire program or any other type of file regardless of size.

Incoming binary files are stored in the InBox with a File Type of Data. To use TrueFile, both devices must be ITU/TSS T.434 binary file transfer (BFT)-compatible. To save the received file, double-click on the InBox entry or highlight the desired entry and press Enter.

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