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NAME

       fax - make, send, receive, view or print a fax

SYNOPSIS

       fax help

       fax make [-l] file

       fax send [-l] [-v] { -m | number } filename...

       fax [ receive [-v] [ filename-prefix ] ]

       fax { print | view | rm } filename...

       fax { queue | status [t] |  start | stop }

       fax answer

OPTIONS

       -l       use low (96 line per inch) resolution

       -v       display verbose messages for debugging

       -m       the phone call has already been dialed manually

       The  commands make, send, receive, view and queue may be abbreviated to
       their first characters (e.g. ‘‘fax q’’).

       Assignments of the form VARIABLE=value may appear  before  the  command
       name  to  temporarily  change  the  values of most fax script variables
       (e.g. ‘‘fax PAGE=a4 print letter.001’’)

DESCRIPTION

       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 fax help 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 fax send command or
       you can use the fax make 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 fax make doc.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 fax send 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 fax send 555-1212 doc.ps.0* (if  you  had
       already  run  the fax make command) or simply fax send 555-1212 doc.ps.
       If the number is busy the script will wait and try again.

       Use the fax receive 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 fax print, fax view, and fax rm 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
       fax  queue  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
       fax print, view and rm commands will first check for the named files in
       this  spool  directory.  The fax status command shows the status of the
       automatic receive process once, or every t seconds.   Privileged  users
       can use the fax stop and fax start commands to stop and restart the fax
       reception daemon.

       The fax answer 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  fax  new  command  to create a simple cover page and start up a
          text editor

       -  the fax makefont command converts a Postscript font to a  bit-mapped
          font for use in headers or text

RESOLUTION

       Faxes  can  be  created  at  low  (98 lines per inch) or high (196 lpi)
       resolution.  Almost all fax machines will operate at either resolution.
       By  default  files  are  created at high resolution but you can use the
       optional -l argument to create files at low resolution.

SESSION LOGS

       The modem  commands  and  responses  together  with  status  and  error
       messages  are  written  to  file.   If  the fax is successfully sent or
       received the log file is  removed.   Otherwise  a  message  is  printed
       showing  the  log  file  name.   Please  send  a copy of this file when
       reporting problems with efax.

FILES

       The fax script will ‘source’ the optional shell  scripts  /etc/efax.rc,
       ~/.efaxrc  and/or  ./.efaxrc  before processing command-line arguments.
       These files can be used to set script variables to custom values for  a
       particular system, user and/or directory.

       The  following  files  are  created  in the FAXDIR spool directory when
       automatic  fax  reception  is  enabled  (see  the  fax  script).    DEV
       represents the name of the fax modem device file in /dev (e.g. cua1 for
       /dev/cua1).

       DEV.n     the log file created by the fax answer daemon with process id
                 n

       DEV.log   contains  collected  log  files  for  device  DEV.  Log files
                 showing a termination status of 1  (device  busy)  or  4  (no
                 response from modem) are not added to this file.

       DEV.stop  created  by  the  fax  stop command to prevent the fax daemon
                 from starting up.

AUTHOR

       Fax was written by Ed Casas.  Please send comments or  bug  reports  to
       edc@cce.com.  Please describe the type of modem used and include a copy
       of the log file.

COPYRIGHT

       Fax is copyright 1993 -- 1999 by Ed Casas.  It may be used, copied  and
       modified under the terms of the GNU Public License.

DISCLAIMER

       Although  fax  has been tested, it may have errors that will prevent it
       from working correctly on your system.  Some of these errors may  cause
       serious  problems including loss of data and interruptions to telephone
       service.

SEE ALSO

       efax(1), efix(1), ghostscript(1).

BUGS

       See efax(1).