Throwback Thursday: Fax Machines

 

Fax machines may have been essential office equipments back in the 70s, but it does not have as much significance today with the availability of so many alternatives to send documents. Along with the slight obsolescence of landlines is the declining need for fax machines that also run through copper wires. Although it has been previously reported that at least 700,000 fax machines were sold in the last 2 years in the United States alone, technologies that we have today are slowly and undoubtedly replacing these machines.

With the rise of camera-enabled smart phones, anyone who owns one can simply take a photo of a document they need to send and deliver it to its intended recipient via email using the same device. Just as it is easy to capture a photo and send it too via email using only a smart phone, the role of fax machines truly becomes dwarfed mostly in terms of convenience. 

Also, with the speed and easy of use of scanners, you get to have a hard copy of the document you want to send, save it in your ‘My Documents’ folder and deliver it to your recipient via email as well. If your recipient needs to sign the document, all he or she needs to do is to print the scanned document, scan it back and deliver it to you via email. Although printing it, signing it then scanning it back again may entail some work, it is naturally more cost-efficient than using a fax machine for its transmission. After all, who does not own a printer and a scanner anyway in the 21^st century?

Also, did you know that there are Scan-PDF-Email website applications that you can use? It's pretty much self-explanatory, but using these websites such as www.scantopdf.eu or www.onlinerocr.net allows you to convert to PDF format any document that you scan before sending it via email. This makes it a lot fitting for formal documents that you need to send. And with the ubiquitous capability of so many devices such as iPads and iPhones aside from laptops to read PDF documents, you won't have to worry about your emailed document not read by your recipient. You can even password-protect scanned PDF documents for that extra layer of security.

How about you? What do you think are great alternatives to a fax machines? Send it to us privately on Facebook!