fax provides a simple user interface to the efax(1) and efix(1) programs. It allows you to send text or
Postscript files as faxes and receive, print or preview received faxes. The faxhelp command prints a
summary of the possible commands.
To send a fax, the original files need to be converted from ASCII or Postscript into a particular bit-map
format (TIFF with Group 3 encoding). This can be done automatically by the faxsend command or you can
use the faxmake command to do the conversion before sending the fax. The conversion will create one
file per page. These files will have the name of the original file with the page number as an additional
suffix. For example, running faxmakedoc.ps on the two-page postscript file doc.ps would generate the
files doc.ps.001 and doc.ps.002.
When sending a fax with the faxsend command you may dial the number manually and use the -m option or
you may give the phone number on the command line. The names of the files to be sent are given on the
command line, usually by using wildcards. For example, to send a multi-page fax consisting of the files
doc.ps.001, doc.ps.002, and so on, you could use the command faxsend555-1212doc.ps.0* (if you had
already run the faxmake command) or simply faxsend555-1212doc.ps. If the number is busy the script
will wait and try again.
Use the faxreceive command to answer the phone and receive a fax. If a file name is specified the
received fax will be stored in files with the given file name plus an extension equal to the page number.
If no options are given, the received fax will be stored in files having a name given by the date and
time and an extension equal to the page number. For example, a fax received beginning on July 4 at
3:05:20 pm will generate files 0704150520.001, 0704150520.002, and so on.
The faxprint, faxview, and faxrm commands are used to print, preview or remove received fax files. As
with the send command the file names are usually given using wildcards.
If efax has been installed for automatic fax reception you can use the faxqueue command to check for
files in the incoming spool directory. The fax script can also be configured to print received faxes or
e-mail them as MIME attachments with type image/tiff-f. For convenience the faxprint, view and rm
commands will first check for the named files in this spool directory. The faxstatus command shows the
status of the automatic receive process once, or every t seconds. Privileged users can use the faxstop
and faxstart commands to stop and restart the fax reception daemon.
The faxanswer command is used for unattended reception of faxes. It is normally placed in the
inittab(5) or ttytab(5) file and is run automatically by init(8).
The -v option displays verbose messages.
Other features of the fax script are documented within the script:
- a directory that lets you specify recipients by name instead of number
- the faxnew command to create a simple cover page and start up a text editor
- the faxmakefont command converts a Postscript font to a bit-mapped font for use in headers or text