Re: flexfax: replacing an exchange fax server

[Nico Kadel-Garcia <raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu>]

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On Mon, 16 Nov 1998, Matthew Kirkwood wrote:

> [ Warning: could be considered not strictly
>   hylafax related ]
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm helping someone to replace an NT box with
> a RedHat system, and we're satisfied that we can
> get Linux to do everything that his current dying
> Small Business Server can, with the exception of
> fax services.

I've set this up on a consulting basis for several sites. Let me know
if you need help.

> His users work almost entirely from Outlook 98,
> and send faxes by mailing word documents as
> attachments to email addresses which look like
> '[fax:NUMBER]'

So far, so good.

> It seems that Outlook then sends the document
> through to Exchange with hands it to the fax service
> for rendering and faxing.

***GACK***. Exchange is one of the most unreliable products
known to modern computing, beaten for poor service only by
its predecessor MSMail and a misbegotten product called
"First Class" written for the Macintosh.

> I was wondering if anyone had done something like
> this before; I suspect that it could be done quite
> simply with some VBA at the client side, but he
> doesn't want to have to alter the clients and
> especially his users way of working.

It can be done with built-in tools for HylaFAX and
a modern Linux system. Incoming mail goes to "fax@linux-server",
and includes an extra header for "Fax Recipient:"

> Ideally, there would be a Linux word->tiff renderer
> available, but I suspect that to be a pipe-dream.

Definitely. There are some tools for Word document translation, but
what you really want to work with is Postscript output.  Instead of
sending the documents as Word documents, the easiest solution is to
print them to the Fax server. The Star Office suite
(www.stardivision.com) may be able to translate Word documents
directly to Postscript: you might write to them and ask.

The same functionality may be available via "WHFC", which uses
*printing* to send a job to the fax server instead of email. This
raises security issues of protecting your fax server, but no greater
than those of letting email be sent through your fax server.

			Nico Kadel-Garcia
			Senior Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary
			raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu

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