PULOGOPrinceton University Campus Fax Gateway Services

Princeton University
Office of Information Technology (OIT)

How to Use the Campus Fax Gateway

As many people have now come to know, 'fax' is a shortened form of facsimile and refers to the transmission and reproduction of graphic material. Traditionally, documents containing printed text and/or pictures (graphics) were sent between special devices (known as fax machines) by making a telephone call from one fax machine to another and "feeding in" the documents to be transmitted; copies are produced by the receiving fax machine.

Using the Campus Fax Gateway, electronic documents such as word processing files or spreadsheets can be faxed directly in their electronic form; there is no need to produce paper to feed into a fax machine. The Campus Fax Gateway enables the faxing of documents from most personal and host computers that are connected to the campus network.

Fax documents can be sent by electronic mail or by an extension to the standard computer print function. Because different computer systems use different print commands, separate detailed instructions for fax printing are available for the different systems.

This document describes the basic operation of the Fax Gateway:

Automatic coversheet information

A common practice when sending a fax is to provide a cover sheet which contains information such as your fax telephone number (this allows the recipient to respond via fax), your name and company, the name of the recipient and the telephone number of the recipient's fax. . The Campus Fax Gateway automatically creates a personalized fax cover sheet containing your name, voice telephone number and a return fax telephone (normally a departmental fax machine) which are retrieved from the on-line directory. The coversheet also includes the recipient's name and fax telephone number, which you supplied when you sent the fax. Depending on how you access the Fax Gateway, you may be able to override some of the automatically generated coversheet information. Additional fax options are also available; see the fax documention for the system you are using for more information.

Choosing To Send Your Fax By E-mail or Printing

Deciding whether to use E-mail or a print command to transmit your fax is largely a matter of convenience, but some technical criteria apply as well. E-mail is best for short messages and for messages being sent to both E-mail and fax recipients. E-mail can only sent plain text messages, not formatted files such as word processing files or spreadsheets. Printing is best for sending faxes to multiple fax recipients and for sending prepared files, including PostScript files and files created in a word processing program such as Word or WordPerfect; the fax print commands may also provide additional features and enhanced functionality.

If you want to send a PostScript file, you should use the Unix fax command. The Campus Fax Gateway will convert most PostScript jobs into a format suitable for fax transmission. However, not all PostScript can be translated properly; check the E-mail responses you receive from the Campus Fax Gateway to insure your PostScript jobs are successfully translated. For more information on the fax command, see the document on How to Print a Fax from OIT Unix systems . 

Specifying the Fax Telephone Number

Electronic faxes are sent over telephone lines just as hard-copy faxes are, and you must provide the recipient fax number as you would dial it on a conventional fax machine. The fax phone number should be typed as you would dial it on a campus phone, e.g. 81234, 95551234. For clarity's sake, the number can be typed with dashes, as phone numbers are frequently written (8-1234, 9-555-1234). That format will be used in the examples below.

Sending A Fax Through E-mail

To send a fax by E-mail, use your usual E-mail program. The general format to send a fax message via E-mail is:

mailcommand "faxphone/recptFirstname_Lastname/option"@faxserver.princeton.edu

The recipient's name, as you specify it, will appear on the cover page of the fax. You should use an underscore (_) to separate the first and last name and for any other spaces in the person's name. You should not use any other character or spaces for that purpose. Examples of commands to send a fax via E-mail:

From unix using the mail command:
mail "8-0000/Red_Fraggle"@faxserver.princeton.edu

From unix using the mush command:
mush "8-0000/Red_Fraggle"@faxserver.princeton.edu

From Netscape mail, enter the following on the To: line:
 8-0000/Red_Fraggle@faxserver.princeton.edu

To include E-mail recipients as well as a fax recipient, add the other E-mail addresses to the list of recipients.

For example:
mail "8-0000/Red_Fraggle"@faxserver.princeton.edu,jdoe@princeton.edu.

Sending a Fax Using a Print Command

Print jobs sent to the Campus Fax Gateway can be anything you normally send to a printer driven by one of the OIT printservers. Each of the supported systems provides its own method for sending fax print jobs.

Examples of commands to send fax print jobs:

From Unix:
fax -P xxxxx/name filename
for example: fax -P 8-0000/Red_Fraggle report

The command is documented in How to Print a Fax from OIT Unix systems. 

From a Windows PC, you use a special program named PUFAX. The procedures are documented in How to Print a Fax from Windows 95/98/NT  

What the Faxserver Does

The Faxserver creates a cover sheet with the recipient's name and fax number, as well as the sender's, and then attempts to send the fax. A confirmation E-mail message from faxmaster will inform you it accepted the job. Final status of the transmission of your fax will also be sent to you via E-mail. These E-mail notifications can be controlled by options described below.

The Campus Fax Gateway cannot guarantee delivery of your fax, because transmission uses equipment and services beyond our control. Keep a copy of your faxed document until you receive the final status notification. This will eliminate the need to recreate a document should the Campus Fax Gateway encounter unresolvable problems with the delivery of your fax, for example, if the intended recipient fax machine is turned off.

Sending A Fax On- or Off-Campus for Faculty and Staff

The recipient fax telephone number should be specified as if you were dialing it from a telephone on the main campus.

Telephone calls (and faxes) beyond the local calling area require additional information to allow appropriate billing. Calling card billing is discussed below. Billing to a University phone number requires a Telephone Authorization Code (AUTHCODE). For faculty and staff the AUTHCODE already is part of your electronic identification and does not need to be supplied as part of the fax telephone number. The Campus Fax Gateway will supply the AUTHCODE needed. If you do not have a AUTHCODE, please contact your Telephone Coordinator, your supervisor, or the Princeton University Telephone Office to obtain one. The Campus Fax Gateway will use the one that is included in your electronic identification.

Sending an Off-Campus Fax and Charging it to a Calling Card

Long-distance telephone charges incurred when sending a fax can be billed to a telephone calling card. This is a useful option for students because you can not use a Personal Authorization Code (PAC) to charge an off-campus fax.

If you want to bill a long-distance fax to a calling card, you must include the following items of information:

Because the telephone number dialed by the Faxserver is usually placed on the fax cover page, an option is provided to mask (not display) information such as the calling card number. The option is invoked with the characters '$$' and the information following this option is masked. Note: Do not include other E-mail recipients for any fax charged to a calling card that is sent via E-mail; doing so will reveal your calling card number to the other E-mail recipients.

The Faxserver will examine the telephone number to be dialed and match it against a list of service provider numbers. If a match is found, the remainder of the telephone number information will be scanned to insure that the $$ option is present and that at least three characters follow the $$. If the $$ option is not included, your fax will not be sent and you will receive E-mail to that effect.

In the Unix environment, it is recommended you use the fax command to send a fax using a calling card. The fax telephone number specification needs to be enclosed in single quotes (not double). For example, using the fax command:

fax -P '9-1-800-321-0288,,,,,609-258-3943,$$,342987687' file

The above example only applies to those using long-distance calling cards to send a fax from the Unix environment because $$ will be expanded by most shells to be the process ID of the current shell. The single quotes instruct the shells to not interpolate the contents of the string and the $$ will be passed as $$ and not as a number.

Long Distance Service Provider 800 Numbers

The following are the long distance service 800 numbers the Campus Fax Gateway knows. Note that the commas are essential elements. They provide delays to compensate for phone system response variations.

800-321-0288 AT&T
format: 9-1-800-321-0288,,,,,<fax telephone number>,$$,<calling card number>

800-674-7000 MCI (new number)
format: 9-1-800-674-7000,,,,,$$,<calling card number>,,<fax telephone number>

800-950-1022 MCI (old number)
format: 9-1-800-950-1022,,,,,<fax telephone number>,$$,<calling card number>

800-444-9595 MCI VISA Service
format: 9-1-800-444-9595,,,,$$,<calling card number>,,<fax telephone number>

800-888-800 MCI World Phone
format: 9-1-800-888-8000,,,,$$<calling card number>,,,<fax telephone number>

800-877-8000 Sprint
format: 9-1-8008778000,,,,,<fax telephone number>,$$,<calling card number>

800-741-7200 WorldCom
format: 9-1-8007417200,,,,<fax telephone number>,$$,<calling card number>

An example of the telephone number supplied to the Faxserver for sending a fax to 87 Prospect using an AT&T calling card would be:

9-1-800-321-0288,,,,,,609-258-3943,$$,60925800001234

The cost of sending an electronic fax is no greater than sending other E-mail or printing, or making a long-distance telephone call. There is no surcharge for use of the Fax Gateway. Long-distance electronic faxes are charged as long-distance calls from your telephone would be and appear on your phone bill as any other AUTHCODE calls do.

Additional Options for Electronic Faxes

A number of additional options for special handling are available when sending an electronic fax. If you specify multiple options, separate them with underscores; do not use other characters, since many mail programs will not handle them properly. The following options are all available when sending a fax via E-mail; if you send a fax via a print command, the options available depend on the specific system you are using and are documented for each system.

ERRORS
Limits Faxserver's E-mail to fax processing error reports only. No other progress reports or notifications will be sent to you.
QUIET
Prevents E-mail messages to you regarding your fax job.
TSI phone-number
Causes your fax to appear to originate from a fax machine at the number specified (TSI stands for Transmitting Station Identifier); use this option to override the fax phone number the computer associates with you. Be sure to specify a number with area-code and use a dash '-' character as a separator, e.g., 1-609-258-3943. "GLOBALV SET FAXTSI phone-number" will set your TSI option for your CMS login session. "setenv FAXTSI phone-number" will set your TSI option if you use the Unix C-shell.

You can specify the options in the following ways:

From Unix using the mail command:
mail "faxphone/firstname_lastname/option_option"@faxserver.princeton.edu

From Unix using the fax command:
fax -P 8-xxxx -O option_option filename

For More Information

For complete information, please see the following documents:

How to Print a Fax from OIT Unix systems
How to Print a Fax from a WIndows95/WindowsNT/Windows2000 Workstation

If you have any questions or comments, click here to send them to helpdesk@princeton.edu
Last Updated: July 2002