How do I use and reuse a custom FAX cover sheet?

[Rikatcabs]

In a word document, I would like to FAX it to a recipient using FAX software
on my computer. So I use the "send to" function and get into the FAX Wizard
which allows me to pick one of 3 cover sheet templates. Once I choose a
template, I am allowed to alter/edit and even save the changed cover sheet.
My question is, using the FAX Wizard or some other technique I hope you'll
explain, how do I use a customized template for my future Faxes rather than
one of the 3 basic templates offered in the FAX Wizard? I anticipate that
these future Faxes will be a combination of WORD documents and cover sheets.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I haven't looked at this for a while, but here's my response to a similar
query last year:

If you're seeing the three options "Professional", "Elegant" and
"Contemporary", then the situation is as follows, at least in Word 2003:
a. Word uses a template called Fax Wizard.wiz (you will probably find it in

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033


) as its Fax Wizard. When you opt to print your Fax for faxing later, you
get to choose one of those three types of fax. But Word does not then open a
particular .dot depending on your choice. The wizard dynamically generates
the complete content (as far as I know) of the fax document using VBA code
in the wizard, which you can see if you open the wizard as a document then
open the VBA Editor. It only uses the three .dot templates Professional
Fax.dot etc. to get the /styles/ for the text it inserts into those
generated templates.

So in other words, you should be able to modify one of the default templates
in order to use the /styles/ you want, but in order to make radical changes
to the whole appearance of the fax, you would probably also have to modify
the VBA code in the Fax Wizard.

If you just want to send simple faxes prepared in Word using your own
layout, I suggest you avoid the wizard, and create your own version of one
of the provided templates, such as Professional Fax.dot , Business Fax. dot
etc., then when you want to fax,
a. use File|New to select that fax template and create a new document based
on it
b. fill in the necessary data. There are various ways to approach this -
the existing templates use { MACROBUTTON } fields I think.
c. print the document to your fax printer (if that's how your fax system
works).
If your fax facility offers to add a cover sheet, say you don't want one.

If you are sending via Microsoft Fax, you get to pick one of its cover
sheets. These are a completely different type of thing and have their own
Cover Page Editor (which you may find in Windows Start|"All
Programs"|Accessories|Communications|Fax. However, in that case, it is also
not particularly obvious where the predefined templates are - but if you are
trying to go that route, let us know and I'll try to find out if you can't
find the .cov files).