Why email hasn’t killed the fax

[slorydn1]

We still deal with faxes here, alot of what we do on the law enforcement side of dispatch requires printed signatures (NCIC entries, judges orders things like that). Most agencies still use fax to send that information to other agencies.

For example, lets say the PD in your area arrested someone from my area on an NCIC hit for a felony warrant. I would have to fax that PD a copy of the original warrant so that they can a)hold the suspect in their jail and b) start the extradition process so that we can come get them. Some other states might need a certain document signed by our judge/magistrate so that their judge/magistrate/justice of the peace (etc) can do what they need to do to set bond/hold with no bond (etc). All that still has to be done by fax because alot of places have no way of scanning the document in to be emailed.

[J N Winkler]

I think a lot of apparently obsolescent technologies like fax persist not just because of institutional factors like legal requirements that specify hardcopy, but also because the process of realigning workflows to go completely paperless is seen as fraught with downside risk.

For example, I am a member of a community board that meets monthly and we have the option of receiving our agenda packets via email or snail mail.  I choose email, because it is much easier for me to handle PDFs than paper.  Every single thing we get in our packets is originally produced in Microsoft Office applications (agendas, meeting minutes, reports, briefing documents, etc. in Word; account statements and financial summaries in Excel).  Yet my PDF packets are always raster scans of paper printouts, never printouts directly to PDF via PostScript rendering in Acrobat Distiller.  Why is this?  I suspect it is partly because commercial scanners produce PDFs by default while there is a licensing cost for a pre-press PDF utility like Distiller that works with the standard commercial office packages and whose output quality matches that of a laser printer.  (The PDFWriter utility built into Word yields inferior results.)

[Scott5114]

i very rarely use a scanner anymore either; with email, cameras and voice to text features, scanners have kind of become outdated as well.

I disagree with the second part of that. A cell phone photo can't really capture an image as well as most scanners can. You have to worry about things like lighting, camera angle, noise, etc. Getting a photo of a printed document up to the same quality as a scanned image takes more work in an image editor than I care to do.

[J N Winkler]

The only real advantages a camera (either standalone digital or built into a smartphone) has are speed of image acquisition for a single page and the ability to deal with odd sizes such as thermal paper strips of varying length.  Even with a proper copy-stand setup, glossy stock will often defeat cameras.

I have a scan-and-throw policy that applies to most incoming paper.  Thermal paper receipts typically get photographed with a digital camera (usually not a smartphone camera because even the best are not up to the quality and fidelity of a dedicated digital point-and-shoot, and the camera in my Droid Turbo is pretty bad) and added to a shred pile.  Letter-size paper usually gets run through the sheet-fed scanner and also added to the shred pile.  I keep a 12-year-old Windows XP laptop specifically to run the scanner because I have found most image acquisition software to be far from robust and I don't want any of it on my primary computer.

No images or scanned documents are kept permanently on any device that is taken out of the house.  The digital camera, which is not wifi-enabled, has photos transferred from its SDHC card every so often, including immediately before I take it on a long-distance trip.  The smartphone has its image folders emptied onto my primary computer every so often over the home LAN.

To prevent identity theft, I shred instead of simply discarding anything that might have even titivated SSNs or credit card numbers.  I am old enough to have had my SSN issued out of a statewide pool instead of the national pool (indeed, if your SSN comes out of the national pool, you are still too young even for middle school), which means the full SSN is guessable just from the last four digits.  I count myself lucky not to have had to hang official paper during the years when SSNs were routinely left untitivated on documents that are still available unredacted to the general public.

[Duke87]

I think a lot of apparently obsolescent technologies like fax persist not just because of institutional factors like legal requirements that specify hardcopy, but also because the process of realigning workflows to go completely paperless is seen as fraught with downside risk.

Or simply because of the need to remain "backwards compatible" with other organizations that have not gone paperless.

When we were operating a utility incentive program, we would have loved nothing more than to accept applications digitally only, as digitally was how we stored all of the documents and it would have made our lives easier. But our contract stipulated that we had to accept applications submitted by mail or by fax, and so we did... and indeed, both of these were the method of choice of some applicants. Whenever someone submitted something by mail or fax, we would scan and upload the documents, and then shred the hard copies since we had no need or use for them.

Second, people still believe that they need to physically sign documents that have been sent to them digitally, then redigitize them. This is what leads to people printing out 12 pages of a PDF, signing the last page, then faxing the whole thing somewhere.

To be fair, digitally signing a document in a verifiable way is legitimately more difficult to do than printing it out and signing it the old-fashioned way. I can make a digital signature, put it on a PDF, and then email it to someone easily enough. But unless I get a digital ID from a recognized certificate authority (this costs money), the message "one or more signatures could not be verified" will pop up when the document is viewed, because without that official certificate Acrobat has no way of knowing whether I was the one who actually created the signature.

And let's be real here, how many people know what a certificate authority is or have any understanding of the concept behind them? This is not an aspect of computing that has been made accessible to the common man.

[NJRoadfan]

Hard to believe but most companies (including cell phone companies ironically) will only accept legal process paperwork via fax. What's really annoying is that I know most of them have fax servers on the other end of the line  forwarding what I sent via e-mail!

[Scott5114]

The only real advantages a camera (either standalone digital or built into a smartphone) has are speed of image acquisition for a single page and the ability to deal with odd sizes such as thermal paper strips of varying length.  Even with a proper copy-stand setup, glossy stock will often defeat cameras.

I have a scan-and-throw policy that applies to most incoming paper.  Thermal paper receipts typically get photographed with a digital camera (usually not a smartphone camera because even the best are not up to the quality and fidelity of a dedicated digital point-and-shoot, and the camera in my Droid Turbo is pretty bad) and added to a shred pile.  Letter-size paper usually gets run through the sheet-fed scanner and also added to the shred pile.  I keep a 12-year-old Windows XP laptop specifically to run the scanner because I have found most image acquisition software to be far from robust and I don't want any of it on my primary computer.

Thermal paper receipts is 90% of what I do my scanning on, as part of the accounting for my small business. I find the best way of dealing with them is to use a flatbed scanner and set the scanner mode to black/white only, not even grayscale (the "Lineart" option in xsane). This leverages the benefits of PNG run-length encoding in reducing image size, while keeping the desired text legible and filtering out things like watermarks that aren't necessary for the purposes of recording the particulars of a transaction.

The aforementioned xsane is what I do my scanning in, and it is fairly robust, although the SANE API that it runs on is only available on Linux (xsane is available for Windows, but can only interface with SANE on a Linux computer that a scanner is actually connected to). A key benefit of xsane is that it can control any scanner that SANE can interface with, so it is not tied to any particular device, as much Windows scanning software is.

[abefroman329]

For a time in the 1970s, my mom's office had some sort of telecopier machine that I presume was the predecessor of the modern fax machine. You actually put the receiver of a telephone into a cradle on the machine to make it work. I remember that it took an agonizingly long time for the photocopy to spit out, and the ink smelled horrible.

The first fax machine we had at my workplace in the early 1990s used rolls of thermal paper instead of plain paper.

That's how the modem seen in WarGames worked, too.

[abefroman329]

Except Joe Friday never said "just the facts, ma'am," just like Captain Kirk never said "beam me up, Scotty."

I guess that means he never went to Whole Foods and asked for "just the flax" ?   

Nope.  Never went to a music store and asked for "just the sax," either.

[kkt]

For a time in the 1970s, my mom's office had some sort of telecopier machine that I presume was the predecessor of the modern fax machine. You actually put the receiver of a telephone into a cradle on the machine to make it work. I remember that it took an agonizingly long time for the photocopy to spit out, and the ink smelled horrible.

The first fax machine we had at my workplace in the early 1990s used rolls of thermal paper instead of plain paper.

The 1970s machine was probably an early fax machine.  Early adopters had them by the late 1960s.  Putting the phone handset into a cradle was a phone company rule.  No electrical connection between devices the phone company owned and any device the customer had.  The phone company reason was, what if the customer's device isn't working properly?  It might break the Holy AT&T Network.  Early modems for computer communication also used handsets in a cradle for the same reason.

[webny99]

From googling fax, it seems like a weird combo of calling and mail.

I know you're only a few years younger than me, but I am in disbelief right now. Utter and total 

[US71]

At one time, there was a way to fax via your computer. It's been a while since I used it (only a couple times) so I don't know if it's still used.

[J N Winkler]

At one time, there was a way to fax via your computer. It's been a while since I used it (only a couple times) so I don't know if it's still used.

My current computer dates from 2011 and it still has a modem.  If the device has a modem, then it can be used for faxing with the appropriate software.  I just don't know if computers sold today have modems.

[1995hoo]

For a time in the 1970s, my mom's office had some sort of telecopier machine that I presume was the predecessor of the modern fax machine. You actually put the receiver of a telephone into a cradle on the machine to make it work. I remember that it took an agonizingly long time for the photocopy to spit out, and the ink smelled horrible.

The first fax machine we had at my workplace in the early 1990s used rolls of thermal paper instead of plain paper.

I find it mildly amusing/interesting that some people still use the word "telecopier" to refer to a fax machine. I've often seen letterhead that will give someone's address and then have lines beginning "Telephone:" and "Telecopier:" I assume this is typically a case of "that's how we've always referred to it." Sometimes makes me wonder whether those people, if they worked in the electronics industry, would refer to a compact disc's sampling rate as "44.1 kilocycles" instead of "kilohertz."

Then you have one older guy I briefly worked with about 24 years ago who spelled it "facs," as in, "Please facs this document to 202-555-1212." I suppose that's sort of short for "facsimile," but it makes me think of the kids I knew back in first grade who sounded out the word "once" when doing creative writing assignments and so began their stories with "ones upon a time."

This next point is not directly on-topic but might be semi-related: Anyone else remember the old mimeograph machines? My grammar-school teachers usually called them "ditto machines." You had to put the initial copy on some sort of special paper and then put it in this thing and turn a crank to make the copies, which came out in a somewhat splotchy purple color. Smelled funny, too. My first grammar school (closed in 1982) had at least one of those machines in the library's office, and I don't think they had any photocopiers because it was a Big Deal when the public library first got coin-operated photocopiers patrons could use.

At one time, there was a way to fax via your computer. It's been a while since I used it (only a couple times) so I don't know if it's still used.

My current computer dates from 2011 and it still has a modem.  If the device has a modem, then it can be used for faxing with the appropriate software.  I just don't know if computers sold today have modems.

Presumably even without a conventional modem you could probably fax from your PC using an e-fax service via VOIP.

[hbelkins]

At one time, there was a way to fax via your computer. It's been a while since I used it (only a couple times) so I don't know if it's still used.

There's definitely an add-on for MS Outlook. I use one called Genifax, that allows emails to be faxed. Up until a few years ago, we had some media outlets that did not use email and had to get press releases by fax.

[oscar]

This next point is not directly on-topic but might be semi-related: Anyone else remember the old mimeograph machines? My grammar-school teachers usually called them "ditto machines." You had to put the initial copy on some sort of special paper and then put it in this thing and turn a crank to make the copies, which came out in a somewhat splotchy purple color. Smelled funny, too. My first grammar school (closed in 1982) had at least one of those machines in the library's office, and I don't think they had any photocopiers because it was a Big Deal when the public library first got coin-operated photocopiers patrons could use.

I remember the old mimeographs, and working with the "ditto masters" used to create the copies. The "splotchy purple" ink sometimes got on my hands.

Growing up in military areas (my father was a Marine), I was more familiar with stencils. Those were mainly used to mark fabric items such as duffel bags, weren't really a precursor to photocopies.

[J N Winkler]

This next point is not directly on-topic but might be semi-related: Anyone else remember the old mimeograph machines? My grammar-school teachers usually called them "ditto machines." You had to put the initial copy on some sort of special paper and then put it in this thing and turn a crank to make the copies, which came out in a somewhat splotchy purple color. Smelled funny, too. My first grammar school (closed in 1982) had at least one of those machines in the library's office, and I don't think they had any photocopiers because it was a Big Deal when the public library first got coin-operated photocopiers patrons could use.

I remember mimeograph machines, down to the purple ink and the special duplicate masters, and I think the Wichita public schools kept theirs in use a few years beyond 1982.  I don't remember an abrupt transition from mimeograph to xerographic reproduction but I am pretty sure we were getting photocopied worksheets by 1986, when I finished elementary school.

Our public libraries have photocopiers, but I am not sure they were actually the first to make them available as a community resource.  They were in Dillons supermarkets locally by the late 1980's/early 1990's.

[1995hoo]

I was just on a phone call and while I was waiting for the guy to ring me, I looked up mimeograph machines online. It seems the "ditto machine" is a specific type of mimeograph machine and is sometimes called a "spirit duplicator" (per Wikipedia) because they use an alcohol-based solvent that is the source of the aroma. The machine shown in the Wikipedia article looks smaller than the one I remember, though that could also easily be because a little kid usually sees things as bigger than they are.

[jeffandnicole]

I was just on a phone call and while I was waiting for the guy to ring me, I looked up mimeograph machines online. It seems the "ditto machine" is a specific type of mimeograph machine and is sometimes called a "spirit duplicator" (per Wikipedia) because they use an alcohol-based solvent that is the source of the aroma. The machine shown in the Wikipedia article looks smaller than the one I remember, though that could also easily be because a little kid usually sees things as bigger than they are.

OMG...the ditto machine!  What a memory of a phrase from elementary school!

Ours was in the library, off to the side, for the teachers to copy stuff. 

Incredible to think that the everyday copy (Xerox) machines we have are relatively recent everyday-use machines. And how cheap they are compared to 30, 40 years ago.

[US71]

I was just on a phone call and while I was waiting for the guy to ring me, I looked up mimeograph machines online. It seems the "ditto machine" is a specific type of mimeograph machine and is sometimes called a "spirit duplicator" (per Wikipedia) because they use an alcohol-based solvent that is the source of the aroma. The machine shown in the Wikipedia article looks smaller than the one I remember, though that could also easily be because a little kid usually sees things as bigger than they are.

OMG...the ditto machine!  What a memory of a phrase from elementary school!

Ours was in the library, off to the side, for the teachers to copy stuff. 

Incredible to think that the everyday copy (Xerox) machines we have are relatively recent everyday-use machines. And how cheap they are compared to 30, 40 years ago.

We used a ditto machine to produce a newsletter for the church college group.  It was a wax sheet and if you made a mistake, you couldn't go back and correct it.

[GenExpwy]

There were two types of small duplicating machines. To keep them straight:

The Spirit Duplicator (brand name Ditto™) is the one with purple ink and a funny smell.
  The master was a two-part paper form with purple gunk on one of the inner surfaces. By writing or typing on the blank sheet, the gunk would be transferred onto that back of it. That became, in effect, the printing plate, and the purple was its lifetime supply of ink. The Ditto™ machine then used a solvent to transfer the printing to the output papers.
  Other colors were available, but purple produced the most copies before the master faded away. Textbook publishers sometimes sold pre-made master worksheets to go along with their books.

The Stencil Duplicator (genericized trademark Mimeograph) used a special type of waxed paper called a stencil.
  A typewriter was used to "cut a stencil" . This punched holes in the wax, not the paper – the stencil itself was the wax; the porous paper was just to hold the wax together. The Mimeograph machine would then force ink through the stencil onto the output papers.
  Typewriters of the day often had a two-color ribbon (black and red) with a three-position ribbon switch (one labeled "stencil" , meaning no ribbon). Compared to spirit, stencil produced more copies with more readable printing, but was more expensive.

[kkt]

Yes, spirit duplicators stuck around longer than the stencil duplicators.

In 2014 when my daughter's school moved to a different building, they cleaned out lots of handouts left behind by previous teachers.  Many of them were so old they were done by ditto machines in the purple ink and we had to explain the process to the kids for whom it was only slightly newer than clay tablets.


For a while modems became so cheap that is cheaper and easier to incorporate them into all the motherboards.  That was late 1990s to about 2010, I think.  But after that so few people were using them, they were mostly dropped from motherboards.  Still, a few people use modems, at least as a backup in case wifi goes down or they're stuck someplace that doesn't have internet, so they're still available.

[jeffandnicole]

For a while modems...

Time to explain to Roadgeekteen what a modem is.

[abefroman329]

A modem as a backup option would be useless to me, I don't have a landline.

[1995hoo]

There were two types of small duplicating machines. To keep them straight:

The Spirit Duplicator (brand name Ditto™) is the one with purple ink and a funny smell.
  The master was a two-part paper form with purple gunk on one of the inner surfaces. By writing or typing on the blank sheet, the gunk would be transferred onto that back of it. That became, in effect, the printing plate, and the purple was its lifetime supply of ink. The Ditto™ machine then used a solvent to transfer the printing to the output papers.
  Other colors were available, but purple produced the most copies before the master faded away. Textbook publishers sometimes sold pre-made master worksheets to go along with their books.

....

I definitely recall seeing those types of worksheets at least through third or fourth grade (don't really recall after that). I do recall being confused when one teacher handed out a "ditto" that was in black and white (presumably made on a photocopier and she just used the old terminology) because I thought of (still do, actually) "dittos" as having purple text and graphics.

We had one teacher who had us make our own dittos one day, which is part of the reason why I remember the machine (that, plus my mom volunteered in the school library for a year or two).