Most Mac users don't realize this, but OS X has some great faxing capabilities built right into the OS. Believe it or not, some people still rely on faxing to send/receive critical business (and even personal) information.

The first thing that needs to be done to send faxes out is to set your fax number. This would typically be the number of the analog phone line that your Mac is connected to. This needs to be entered so that the recipient of the fax will be able to identify who the sender is. To do this, open your System Preferences, then click on the "Print & Fax" button. When the next window appears, click on the "Faxing" tab at the top. The resulting window will look like this:

As you can see, I have already set my fax number (obviously a fake one, in this case). You will also notice several options for receiving faxes on this same window. These will be explained in a minute. At this point, sending a fax is as simple as printing. Go to File | Print from any document. After clicking on the "PDF" button on the lower left-hand corner, choose "Fax PDF...", as shown below:

An easy-to-use dialog will appear. Simply enter the information required, and your fax is off.

To receive a fax, refer to the other options in the screenshot at the top of the this Mac Tip. To receive faxes on your Mac, you first need to check the box called "Receive faxes on this computer". When this is checked, the options at the bottom are also enabled. The first thing you need to set is the number of rings you want it to ring before OS X takes over and accepts the fax. After X number of rings, either one, two or three things will happen to your inbound fax:

Save To:
This option allows you to automatically save inbound faxes as PDF files to a predefined folder on your system. Keep in mind permissions when more than one user will be checking these files.

E-mail To:
When this option is checked and configured, it will automatically send inbound faxes (as a PDF file) to a predefined e-mail address. Keep in mind that this address could be an individual's address or a group (meaning a group of employees working in the same department).

Print on Printer:
When checked, this option configures OS X faxing to automatically print all inbound faxes to a predefined printer.

These very cool, very powerful and very simple features may just make you think twice about faxing!