What is Fax? On demand? Distribution?

The term "Fax" really consists of three separate technical features:

1) Scanning or converting printed images into a digital format which can be stored on a personal computer's hard disk. There are several graphical formats which are acceptable and some names are PCX, DFX, TIFF, or an ASCII text file. Because of this conversions performed by the software from the text to graphical image you will generally lose some clarity or resolution from your original document when stored on your hard disk.

2) Transmitting these scanned images over a standard telephone to another similarly equipped device which could be another fax card or machine. These signals are generally sent using a data transmission protocol like G2 or G3.

3) Reproducing these stored images onto a computer screen or to a hard copy device which would then be printed on thermal or plain paper with a laser toner cartridge.

It is important to note that by its very nature, fax is a graphical transmission mechanism and not text based. So, consider this: The page you are now viewing consists of a few thousand characters of typed text which would consume an equivalent amount of space on your hard disk, say 2000 bytes. When these characters are made faxable in terms of graphics, the same contents might consume 200,000 bytes of space or roughly 100 times that of the original amount.

Because of the large amount of data being sent via fax, the document may take a long time to transmit and your resulting image will be poorer in quality than the original. This is just a reality of modern-day fax technology which will be improved in the future. Receiving fax transmissions on a PC fax card further degrades the overall image because it then has to be printed. 

Between this concern and the large amount of hard disk space required to capture a fax document, we do not recommend a PC fax card for reception - only for sending documents as requested by a voice system.