Fax It? Forget It!

So you want a state-of-the-art office? Then what's that fax machine doing in your mail room? Does any hardware device feel slower or clunkier than the fax machine? If an incoming fax isn't getting jammed in the paper chute, then it's probably getting tossed out or misrouted by a colleague who doesn't realize that it's for you. How many phone calls do you make or receive that begin with this question: "Did you get my fax?"

If you're smart, then you already avoid fax machines as much as possible. The next step is to expunge them from your work life entirely. What follows is a reality-tested guide to becoming 100% fax-free -- to meeting the needs of clients and colleagues without putting up with fax-induced headaches.

Faxes, Yes -- Fax Machines, No

Sure, there are plenty of traditionalists out there -- plenty of people who insist on receiving faxes. But don't assume that you need a fax machine in order to work with them. Fax software keeps getting more sophisticated and more dependable. It's easy to paper the world with faxes -- without going anywhere near a fax machine.

WinFax Pro 10.0 ($120), from Symantec, is the best package now available. Take any document that you have on your PC, and this program will send it to any fax machine that you designate. You can even arrange to send a fax at a later time. The latest version of the software also lets you send a fax to an email address rather than to a fax machine -- and the recipient doesn't need to have WinFax Pro or any other special viewing software.

If you have a second phone line, you can use WinFax Pro not only to send faxes on your computer but also to receive them that way. Plus, when you're on the road, you can use WinFax Pro to retrieve unread faxes from your office computer. You can even set the software to delete fax spam automatically. And WinFax Pro now lets you "stamp" your signature on a fax with the click of a button, so you can "sign" a document without having to print it out.

Of course, the latest innovation in faxing without a fax machine involves free Internet-based services that drop incoming faxes into your email inbox. The two leading services are eFax Plus, from eFax.com, and Free FaxPlus, from jfax.com. Both provide you with your own fax number (in most cases, it's a long-distance number). An incoming fax that gets sent to that number is converted into an attachment and then routed to your email address. To view a fax, you just click on the attachment. The convenient result: You can receive faxes from any station where you can log onto your email account.

If you find that you need to send faxes after all, eFax and jfax will accommodate you -- for a price. After you pay a set-up fee of $5 (jfax) or $10 (eFax), both services will charge you $2.95 a month. These fee-based services include special features, such as tools that let you turn fax images into editable text. In the case of eFax, you also have the option of sending an email attachment to the service, which will then convert it into an outgoing fax -- a handy feature when you're traveling and you don't have time to mess around in a hotel business center.

Coordinates: WinFax Pro 10.0, Symantec Corp., www.symantec.com; eFax Plus, eFax.com, www.efax.com; Free FaxPlus, jfax.com, www.jfax.com

But What About ??

No doubt you're already spinning scenarios in which fax software alone, or even a Net-based fax service, just isn't enough. Say that you're on a shuttle and you read a magazine article with a quote from an analyst that you simply must fax to your colleagues. Nice thought. But the reality is that you'll probably tear out the article, stick it in your briefcase, and forget about it until the next time you clean out your bag.

But there's an easier way to share that quote than waiting until you can get to a fax machine. With the right digital tool, you can capture and store important passages without tearing up magazines. And you can email those passages from your laptop as soon as you get to your hotel room -- no faxes, no crumpled paper spilling out of your briefcase. The magic wand that will accomplish that task is the C-Pen 600 ($250), from C Technologies. The C-Pen is essentially a camera crammed into a pen that's about the size of a candy bar. You drag the business end of the C-Pen over a line of text while pressing a button, and the camera captures the text, character by character. (Unfortunately, the C-Pen can't read handwritten text.)

To load the digitized text onto your computer, you'll need a Windows PC with an infrared IrDA port. For many people, that might be a problem, since IrDA ports still aren't very common on desktop computers. The C-Pen does a great job of reading most kinds of printed material. One exception: business cards, many of which use special typefaces that tend to get garbled in transcription.