How to transmit a fax of an ASP web page, from that page?

[Caryn Graves]

Hello. So I've got this web page written in ASP, which has some text and
graphics, and I need to add a feature to the page whereby a user could select
from among a list of fax numbers, and send a fax of the page to the chosen
number (and what would then get faxed, would be the page as if it were
printed out, i.e. including all the text and graphics.)

I have seen pages from other sites that had buttons for sending a fax, so I
am inclined to believe that something (at least vaguely) along these lines
ought to be possible (however, every time I have seen such a page, it would
also seem as though the code for transmitting the fax was in something other
than straight HTML, because it was not evident when I viewed the source code
of the page in my browser.)

There is a fundamental question that is nagging me about this, and that is
how a page from a website can communicate with a fax machine. Web pages can
send e-mails, because they're both on the Internet, and web pages can get
printed out- if a printer is hooked up to your computer. But fax machines
are on the telephone lines, not the Internet lines, no? Like, I also don't
think a web page can be programmed to ring someone's phone (or turn on your
vacuum cleaner.) So, I'm wondering if having this faxing capability would
also require a fax machine to be physically connected to the server on which
the site is hosted???

Well, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm floundering here, so please, any
help with this that anyone could provide, would be most appreciated.
Thanks!!

 

[Mike Brind]

Hello. So I've got this web page written in ASP, which has some text and
graphics, and I need to add a feature to the page whereby a user could select
from among a list of fax numbers, and send a fax of the page to the chosen
number (and what would then get faxed, would be the page as if it were
printed out, i.e. including all the text and graphics.)

I have seen pages from other sites that had buttons for sending a fax, so I
am inclined to believe that something (at least vaguely) along these lines
ought to be possible (however, every time I have seen such a page, it would
also seem as though the code for transmitting the fax was in something other
than straight HTML, because it was not evident when I viewed the source code
of the page in my browser.)

There is a fundamental question that is nagging me about this, and that is
how a page from a website can communicate with a fax machine. Web pages can
send e-mails, because they're both on the Internet, and web pages can get
printed out- if a printer is hooked up to your computer. But fax machines
are on the telephone lines, not the Internet lines, no? Like, I also don't
think a web page can be programmed to ring someone's phone (or turn on your
vacuum cleaner.) So, I'm wondering if having this faxing capability would
also require a fax machine to be physically connected to the server on which
the site is hosted???

Well, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm floundering here, so please, any
help with this that anyone could provide, would be most appreciated.
Thanks!!

You would need a component on the web server that generates and
transmits faxes. Code in the ASP page would call this component which
would then do its thing and send the fax. Something like this:
http://www.interfax.net/en/dev/asp.html

The same broad principal is true for emails. Code calls a component
which generates the email message and sends it through a mail server
connected to, or installed on the web server.

Printing a page is a totally different concept, and relies on the user
making a proactive decision to print the page. You can't do any
programming for this.

 

[Caryn Graves]

Thank you so much for replying to my question, Mike. I've decided to give
this InterFAX product a try, and hopefully it will do the trick. Thanks again,

-Caryn

 

[Mike Brind]

Please note, I wasn't necessarily recommending that product. It was
just the first one that came up in a search that I could show as an
example. I know nothing about its efficacy.

Best of luck with whatever you choose.