Fax from Access

[Jules]

I have a user that is using Access 2003 to manage RA’s. She currently prints
the RA’s and then faxes them to the client. I’m looking for a way to fax from
access to the internal fax modem. It would be nice if the user can run a
process that will fax all the RA’s for the day or week to the individual
recipients. The RA contains the fax number so the process should query the
database and use the information to populate the fax settings. Any help will
be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[Ken Snell MVP]

You can print the report to the Fax printer driver, just as if it were a
regular printer.

 

[Jules]

Yes, but then I have to enter the fax number and use the fax wizard for each
report. I’m looking for a way to fax the reports and use the data that is
already in the access database. The user creates several RA’s per day. I want
her to be able to send the 10 different RA’s to the 10 different fax
recipients. When the user enters the information into the RA they enter the
fax number. I would like the user to be able to fax from Access and not have
to fill out the fax number for each recipient. Your solution would require
that the user run a report for each recipient, fill in the fax number and
send it. This is the very thing I am trying to avoid.
Any other options out there?

 

[GBA]

I would go with an email-to-fax service. They are out there. I would not
invest a dime or a minute in managing any fax hardware or software because it
is such an old technology. Your access task then would be to output emails.
Lots of Q&A on that task at this site to assist you......just 2 cents advice
!!

 

[Jules]

Can you give me an example? I’m familiar with the fax to email options but
the recipients are not able to receive the RAs by email. Obviously, if the
recipients were setup as contacts in outlook we could simply select the
contact while using the fax wizard. Unfortunately they are not contacts. They
are often one time faxes.

 

[Ken Snell MVP]

This article may give some ideas (ignore the ACCESS 2000 identifier; it is
valid for later versions too):
How to fax from Microsoft Access by using the SendObject command in Access
2000
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/231797