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 21st 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!
