| WinFax Pro 8.0: Fast Faxing Over The
Internet This premiere fax tool lets you use the Internet to disseminate information about your business By Lynn Ginsburg, Computer Shopper July, 1997 Although facsimile technology no longer sets any pulses to fluttering, Symantec's new version of WinFax Pro might get you excited about sending and receiving a fax again. WinFax Pro 8.0 includes enough new features to make the whole process actually...well, fun. This new version has the ability to send faxes over the Internet and includes many wizards and tutorials. WinFax Pro's new features, combined with the program's already sophisticated tools, make it faster and less complicated than ever to send and receive faxes at your desktop. One of the most significant features of WinFax Pro continues to be its ability to send faxes over the Internet (a feature first introduced in version 7.5). The advantages to Internet faxing are mainly for long-distance faxes--by sending them over the Internet, you save considerable money over long-distance calling. WinFax Pro sets you up with an Internet faxing account (from service provider NetCentric), using its Internet Fax wizard. You just fill out your basic contact information, and the wizard uses your existing Internet connection to sign you up with the NetCentric Internet faxing service. NetCentric offers a free 30 minutes of Internet fax time to try out the service. Thereafter, the rate is a flat 15 cents per minute for anywhere in the United States, which should provide savings over comparable daytime long-distance rates. In practice, we found that actually sending a fax over the Internet using WinFax Pro is as easy as sending any other kind of fax from the program. You just choose the "send by" method from a drop-down box when sending a fax, and click on "Internet." The program automatically remembers your Internet fax account information, and will just log you onto the NetCentric Internet fax server and send your fax. Although sending a fax over the Internet may still sound exotic, in WinFax Pro it's a very simple click-and-send process. For those who send and receive a lot of faxes each day, the new WinFax Controller feature lets you simply get the job done without turning the process into a major event. The Controller is accessible via an icon from your Windows 95 or Windows NT taskbar. By right-clicking on the Controller icon, you get basic WinFax Pro program options without actually having to launch the whole application. With a single click, you have the option to send a fax, or set WinFax Pro to receive faxes manually or automatically (the latter enables WinFax Pro to automatically receive incoming faxes sent to your modem). We found the WinFax Controller feature to be simple and practical, as well as a major timesaver. Another viable new feature is the Cover Page Design wizard. This wizard makes it easy to go beyond a plain vanilla fax page with little thought or effort. You just follow the steps as the wizard prompts you, choosing the style of your cover page (classic, corporate, or fun), selecting or rejecting various suggested design elements, and adding a border from a large selection. The wizard provides tips as you go through the design process, advising you about what to consider for each step. When you've finished the wizard, a cover page is automatically generated, which you can then edit in the Cover Page Designer window. From the Designer window, we found it easy to pop in a logo, add a graphic, and change the font quickly to customize the cover page to our tastes. In just a few minutes, the Cover Page wizard can help you create an attractive page that goes well beyond the basics. The addition of TalkWorks to WinFax Pro's package is another added bonus. This general communications package adds speakerphone, voice-mail, and fax-on-demand capabilities to an already strong package. If you choose, it will even log every call coming in. This is especially helpful for people who need detailed contact information or who need to track callers. WinFax Pro also lets you set up the program to work with dual modems. Using this feature, you can have the program spread your fax jobs across two lines, doubling your faxing capabilities. You can also set up the program to use one line for faxing and the other for receiving voice-mail messages. The program's phone book manager has also been updated; it now allows you to create separate folders for storing multiple phone books. Phone books are managed in a split-screen window that resembles Windows Explorer. It's easy to drag and drop names from one folder to another, or to dump old numbers into the wastebasket. Fax ToolBoxVersion 8.0 offers plenty of tools that, though not necessarily new with this version, set it apart from the competition and make it a pleasure to use. An old favorite is WinFax Pro's scheduling capability, which lets you schedule a fax to be automatically sent at any time or time period you specify. For instance, you could send faxes during lunch when you're away from the desk and not using your modem for surfing the Net. Or you could schedule it to send faxes any time between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., taking advantage of lower long-distance rates. You can also set up faxes to be sent on a recurring basis. For example, if you regularly send out a weekly sales figures report, you could set it up as an automatic weekly recurring fax. It's also easy to set up credit-card information to bill your faxes to. You can pick from a drop-down list of long-distance providers, and the program automatically provides that vendor's credit-card access number. You just put in your credit-card number, and the calls are automatically billed. You also can include a billing number for accounting purposes. It's true that Windows 95 ships with included fax software that won't cost you any additional money. But WinFax Pro 8.0 offers plenty of added value for the money. The program's elegant interface and many tools provide numerous options for faxing, and simultaneously make the whole process much easier. And WinFax Pro's ability to fax over the Internet could save you money. With its new ease-of-use features and innovative faxing capabilities, WinFax Pro 8.0 may even have you looking forward (hard as it may be to imagine) to sending your next fax. WinFax Pro 8.0 |
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