Faxing with ColdFusion

Good Day all, I know that this was talked about some time ago, but I was hoping that there might be some new information about this topic.  I really want to be able to send a fax through CF, and not have to write something else to do it.  I have tried using the CFPRINT tag, but it does not have any way to accept any fax numbers.   Are there any suggestions?  I will look at other solutions, but no I don't want a pay for use service.  We have a lovely fax machine at the office, and I would like to just leverage that... Thanks in advance. Rob

Not the answer you are looking for I am sure... The most common ways people accomplish this task are: eFax: eFax allows you to send faxes by sending an email to a designated eFax email address from a specified email account. When you do that, it will fax whatever you send it to whomever you want. This is a paid service and they charge by the page Hardware Solutions: There are many vendors who produce hardware that is capable of being accessed over the network through various protocols that CF can access to allow you to send faxes using your own phone equipment. None of these solutions are cheap as the hardware is typically a few thousand dollars. One vendor I have worked with: http://www.castelle.com/ As for making the fax machine in your office do it.. That's just not going to be simple, it most likely was not designed to accomplish this task. Let us know if you do find a way. =] -- Alan Rother Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Developer Manager, Phoenix Cold Fusion User Group, AZCFUG.org

> Not the answer you are looking for I am sure... > The most common ways people accomplish this task are: > There are many vendors who produce hardware that is capable of being > accessed over the network through various protocols that CF can access to You can build your own email to fax gateway using an analogue modem and the free hylafax project:http://www.hylafax.org/content/Main_Page -- Tom Chiverton Helping to revolutionarily consolidate one-to-one distributed back-end fourth-generation segments **************************************************** This email is sent for and on behalf of Halliwells LLP. Halliwells LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registered number OC307980 whose registered office address is at Halliwells LLP, 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3EB.  A list of members is available for inspection at the registered office. Any reference to a partner in relation to Halliwells LLP means a member of Halliwells LLP.  Regulated by The Solicitors Regulation Authority. CONFIDENTIALITY This email is intended only for the use of the addressee named above and may be confidential or legally privileged.  If you are not the addressee you must not read it and must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than Halliwells LLP or the addressee of its existence or contents.   If you have received this email in error please delete it and notify Halliwells LLP IT Department on 0870 365 2500. For more information about Halliwells LLP visit www.halliwells.com.

Okay, I have  a Canon printer/fax on the network, that we use.  It has a static IP, etc.  Is there a way to send the required information here?  I don't really want to use the server to send faxes through the modem.  Maybe I will have to talk to Canon and see if they have a COM object or something that I can interact with through CF. Thanks, Rob On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:39 AM, Tom Chiverton <tom.chiverton@halliwells.com ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Rob Parkhill wrote: > Okay, > I have  a Canon printer/fax on the network, that we use.  It has a static > IP, etc.  Is there a way to send the required information here?  I don't > really want to use the server to send faxes through the modem.  Maybe I will > have to talk to Canon and see if they have a COM object or something that I > can interact with through CF. How can you send documents to the fax machine from a computer without ColdFusion? If you can define that, then it can be determined if ColdFusion can do it or not. Depending on the answers, some features of CFML that you are most likely going to be looking at are <cfhttp...>, <cfexecute...> or <cfobject...>

Can you "print a fax" to the MFU and instruct it to fax rather than actually print? If so, you may have another option. Make sure your CF services run as a user that has permissions to send print jobs to your network printer. Log on to the CF server using the same account as your CF services. Setup the network printer and run a test print. Then, have CF generate a text file, use CFEXECUTE to print it and sit back and enjoy. (One other option is to create a PDF and use CFPRINT to send it to the printer.) Mike Okay, I have  a Canon printer/fax on the network, that we use.  It has a static IP, etc.  Is there a way to send the required information here? I don't really want to use the server to send faxes through the modem. Maybe I will have to talk to Canon and see if they have a COM object or something that I can interact with through CF. Thanks, Rob