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A quick introduction to fax in general
What is a "fax document?"
Simply put, a "fax document" is anything a fax user wants to fax to
someone else. It can be just one page or as many pages as you need. It can
be text, a photograph or even your child's latest drawing!
What is a "fax number?"
Because your fax operates on standard phone lines, a "fax number" is just
a regular phone number and, because your fax is also a high-quality, full-
featured telephone, your fax number can be your regular phone number.
You can — but this isn't necessary — dedicate a phone number to your
fax machine, letting you use one number for ordinary voice calls and one
just for fax.
What are resolution and grayscale?
Just as cars are measured by engine size and stereo systems are
measured by watts per channel, so fax machines are measured by
resolution and grayscale. So let's talk about these for a moment.
Resolution refers to the sharpness of a fax transmission. It's expressed in
lines per inch (lpi). An international agency has defined three specific
levels of resolution:
• Normal (203 horizontal x 98 vertical lpi)
• Fine (203 x 196 lpi)
• Superfine (203 x 392 lpi).
Similarly, one can judge a fax transmission by its number of grayscale
levels, or shades of gray — really, halftones such as you might see in a
newspaper photo. It's likely most of your fax documents will be dark text
on white paper. However, when you want to send photographs and other
shaded items, you can set your fax machine to transmit in 64-level
grayscale. (And for just copying and not faxing, you can use 128-level
grayscale for even more enhanced image quality.)
So why not set your fax machine to use superfine or
grayscale for all transmissions?
Because these settings make your machine send more information,
making transmissions last longer and (on long-distance calls) driving up
your phone bills. That's why, as you'll see, we've made it easy for you to
set your fax machine for the most efficient, and truest, transmission of
the types of documents you send.
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