How to Fax from Email: A Guide on Email to Fax

How to Fax from Email: A Guide on Email to Fax

Introduction

Although people are certainly faxing less often these days, there is still a distinct need to send faxes by email in many different situations. And now that email has become the norm for communications - particularly in the professional world - people sometimes need to send faxes directly from their email.

Fortunately, this isn’t as much of a contradiction of ideas as it sounds like. Once you learn the steps involved, you’ll find that it is easy to send faxes by email without a problem. In this article, we will provide a guide about how to do this. It doesn’t involve the use of a fax machine, but rather formatting an email in such a way that it will reach a fax and come out on the other side in the proper format.

What are the advantages of sending a fax from an email?

There are actually a number of advantages to receiving faxes. Certain kinds of organizations and government bodies don’t want sensitive emails floating around on their servers, partially because of the risk of viruses and malware. In receiving a fax, the information only goes to one place, and it is only visible by the people to receive it.

Believe it or not, there are still certain industries for which it is a requirement to receive information by fax. For example, medical offices are often not allowed to receive critical information by email because of privacy concerns. This is so great of a potential legal issue that fax service providers are actually required to be HIPAA-compliant, regardless of the industries that they might work with. 

Also, certain types of legal information is often only able to be received by fax. Many legal offices require them because of the potentially sensitive material involved. Government offices also use them - things such as contracts, government forms, and personal records are faxed by standard to government offices. 

Real estate uses them as well. Contracts that are considered binding are not sent through email because of their potential to be tampered with. There are also privacy considerations involved. Insurance companies, banks, and financial services are among others that use faxes as a standard way of sending certain types of documents. In other words, it hasn’t gone out of style at all, and it is worthwhile to learn the steps involved in sending emails to fax.

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Steps involved in using email to fax

If you’re wondering how to receive a fax through email, don’t worry; it’s not that difficult. The process of sending fax through email is quite simple once you have access to a service. First, you will need to subscribe to fax solutions that facilitate the process, such as everyfax.com. These companies offer online fax services of different sorts. Once you have created an account, you can send a fax through email by means of completing the following steps:

1. Open the message that you want to send.
2. The number that you will be faxing to is part of the email address, for example faxnumber@usualdomain.com.
3. Type out your email as you normally would. You will also need to choose a template for your fax cover page, just as you would have picked a paper one for a traditional fax machine.
4. Include any attachments that you would like included in the fax. These will come out as separate pages.
5. As you send the email to the recipient’s fax number, the faxing tool that you use will take care of the rest of the process for you. The fax machine that receives your fax will receive a call just as it would for a traditional fax.
6. Check for confirmation in the form of a digital fax report.

How to send an email from a fax

Another function that you should be familiar with is the reverse: how to send an email from a fax. To accomplish this, you will first of all need to have a unique digital fax number through which you can receive a fax online. It is also possible to get one through a third-party app by means of using an application programming interface.

The way that it works is that the online fax maker converts the fax that is sent to a PDF or another compatible format. It appears as an attachment to the email. 

Benefits of receiving faxes as emails

There are definite advantages to receiving faxes as emails, and to online faxing in general. First of all, they are easier to deal with. You don’t have to worry about manipulating some big, clumsy machine. And the document you receive will be in your system as soon as it is sent. You won’t have to worry about potentially losing parts or having them inadvertently exposed to undesirable people. A related advantage is that your attachment will be able to be included in your company’s workflows seamlessly.

The following are the steps involved in sending a fax to an email address:

1. Create the fax as you normally would for a traditional fax-to-fax delivery.
2. Instead of sending to a machine, the data gets sent to the service provider that is designated by the receiver.
3. After being received by the service provider, they then convert the fax into a PDF and send it to the email of the client company.
4. You will receive the email as normal, and the fax report will be logged. If you have a high-enough quality service provider, you will be able to receive a fax report at any time in the future as faxed will all have been archived.

Conclusion

Faxes are still very much a necessary part of life for a wide range of professional groups. Your company may well be among those which will eventually require the use of faxing, and it will be much easier for you if you can send and receive faxes using email. There are numerous benefits to faxing online, including the elimination of the fax machine itself, which many people would rather not 

FAQs

1. Is it possible to send fax from email using gmail or Yahoo! with documents attached, or another email provider?
   You can fax documents through Gmail by downloading a third-party add-on on Google Workspace. You can then send as you would from your regular email. You can send a fax via email through your Yahoo! mail if you use a third-party app. The same is true for other email providers, and you can use your Outlook in a similar way.

2. Can I send a fax from either a Mac or Windows?
   You can send a fax from your Mac or Windows computer as long as the app you choose is compatible with the type that you use.

3. Can I send large documents through online faxes?
   You can send documents of any size through online faxing. There is no limit to what you can attach in an individual fax. Sending multiple faxes might have limitations, depending on the type of service that you pay for.

4. Are online faxing services only good for certain sized businesses?
   Actually, any size business can utilize online faxing.The difference lies in what type of services you require. Some small businesses (or individuals) only need to send or receive a few faxes. In these cases, the users will subscribe to a service and pay individually for individual faxes. For medium enterprises or multi-national corporations, the needs are usually much greater. If yours is a large company with diverse needs and potentially multiple users, you might consider using enterprise-level faxing services that allow for unlimited volume and user numbers.

5. Will I pay overseas charges for international faxes?
   In using email to fax services, you won’t have to worry about international dialing codes or paying overseas charges. You will simply pay for the service itself, and the provider will take care of the rest. 

6. Does the email to fax process work on different types of devices?
   If you get the right service, it will be applicable to any Internet-connected device. This is one of the things that you should look for in a provider. In other words, the right service will provide you with the ability to use a PC, mobile device, or a tablet to carry out your business.

7. How do I know if a service provider is reputable?
   If you’re looking for a service provider through which you can conduct your faxing needs, look for one that gets good reviews on third-party sites, first of all. Also, look for a service that follows strict protocols with regard to security. As mentioned above, HIPPA compliance is a standard feature, so even if you do not need this service, it is a mark of approval for service providers.