Although e-mail has become the predominant means of communication on the Web, the need to send or receive a fax is still essential. In this tip, we'll walk you through the installation process and common trouble areas when installing a fax function on your printer.
The faxes are sent and received over your phone line much like a normal telephone call and are not sent through your Internet provider unless you have a special service. So your fax device will need to connect to your phone line even if you have a broadband Internet connection.
Before we get started, make sure that in addition to your computer and monitor you have a telephone cable, nearby telephone socket with active phone service, a printer with fax capabilities and software for your fax function installation. It's a good idea to test the phone jack with a phone to ensure there's a dial tone before you go through the setup.
Since faxes use the phone line, if you only have one phone line and you use dialup Internet access you'll not be able to send or receive faxes while you're on the Internet. The two things to remember when installing the fax function are, one, programming the appropriate country settings on the OP panel and, two, following the Dell fax setup wizard. Let's get started by setting the country code.
On your printer control panel find the setup option by using the arrow keys and then hit select. Now arrow over to country setting and hit select again. Most of you are watching this are in the U.S., so arrow over to the U.S. and hit select. Now you should launch the Dell fax setup wizard.
For your PC setup, it will make your life easier to install via the setup wizard because it will initialize key settings such as the number of rings before the fax picks up and receives an incoming fax. If you're just starting your install you'll be prompted to go through the fax setup automatically.
If you previously installed your printer, you can get to the fax setup wizard under the setup wizard under Dell Fax Setup. The wizard is pretty self-explanatory but we'll leave you to it, but make sure you do the fax test after the end of the wizard setup.
This will ensure that the hardware setup has been successfully completed and everything is functioning properly. There's two ways you can send a fax.
The first and easiest is from the printer itself like a regular fax machine. Simply lay your document on the scanner and you can send the fax using the front panel controls. Another way to send a fax is from your PC. Anything you can print, such as a Word document or picture, can be faxed.
Simply open the document on your PC and select print. For your printer, choose fax, and you'll be prompted for a fax number. For more information about fax function or printers with faxing capabilities, please visit this link.
