OnAgendaTech

E l last point relating to the modems that remains is the management of faxes. This point is very well covered in Ubuntu (GNU / Linux), by two applications: hylafax and efax. The first is more oriented towards servers, the second to the desktop, including a front-end that makes their use very comfortable.

efax is a very flexible and configurable application that seamlessly covers the needs of a personal computer, server can even act, though with some basic skills in the latter case.

The only-slightly-negative aspect that has struck me is that its GUI, efax-gtk, is not translated into Spanish ... And for the record that does not invite anyone to do the translation, because in this "guild" of Open Source, the answer is usually an obvious and unequivocal: "because you do it."

More than about running, which is quite clever, worthwhile to outline its basic configuration.

Installation

As a first step, install the application, efax-gtk from Synaptic Package Manager.

The documents sent are converted to TIFF-G3 format only from Postscript , standard language page description. Handling is necessary for Ghostscript , which already have installed. While we will need a viewer that integrates well into Gnome, and Gnome GhostView (VMG). Install it from Synaptic too.

After installation will have created some sub folders to store faxes in your home directory.

• faxsent : Faxes sent.
• faxin : Faxes received. Create a subdirectory for each fax received and a file in it for each page.
• faxout : When printing a postscript file here, via socket, is queued for sending.

Configuration

Although you can generate, then load the postscript files in efax manually, using the print option and specify Generic Postscript to file it as comfortable and flexible to create a printer that performs the conversion to postscript, and send it to port eFax, which will automatically put it in the queue or send immediately.

We will need minimal configuration:

We launched the application that is in the Applications menu => office opened the Settings dialog File => Settings, and:

• In the Identity tab we can put our personal data for the header of faxes sent, name and phone number.
• Modem tab in Serial Device will indicate the serial port on the modem.
• In View, we change the Postscript viewer program ggv gs to the viewer that we installed earlier.
• In Socket we make sure that this marking Run socket server and Adesso Allowed to connect, select localhost.

The rest we can leave as is.

In the main window, Fax entry method, mark socket. Confirmed with a message that begins to "listen" on port 9900.

Add a printer Postscript-TCP/Socket

From Administration => Printers will indicate new printer, and tell us reading the printer database, which can be slow.

Now we select as indicated in the images:

We make network printer and select TCP / Socket .... Of the drop. Team, localhost and Port 9900.

Selecting the printer model, Postscript.

We give a name to the printer, for example Postscript.

Now we can print from any program in the printer that we have created efax.

Efax Starting at boot

You may want to have an active application in the taskbar when you start the computer, to help them we Sessions = System menu> administration.

From Home Programs tab and introduce him as new indicator command:

efax-gtk -r -s

• The-s makes efax starts minimized in the taskbar
• The-r is placed makes efax is receiving mode (equivalent to pressing standby on the main window)

Management

Clicking on the icon on the taskbar, open the main window efax.

Send

As mentioned just print to the printer you created. Once this is done by clicking on Socket List and see the queue pending submission of documents by clicking on the magnifying glass can preview. Just select the documents that we send and say the recipient's number in Tel number. And, no more, to tell Send Fax.

If you have enabled popup dialog Received fax from When the flange socket Socket, we ask the phone number and can tell you I put in queue (Queue fax) or send it immediately (Send Fax) without having to enter eFax window.

Tel Pressing number we can keep a phone book.

If we review the documents submitted, we agree to Sent fax list from the File menu. From here we have multiple opportunities to manage the file of those faxes sent: organize them into folders, rename them, add comments, view, print or delete them.

Multiple Documents

You can select multiple documents, being able to send these as separate pages at the same target at once. This is quite interesting, since we no longer have to compose a single document with information from different sources in order to send simultaneously. To do this:

• We print the documents from various applications that are with the option of dialogue Generic Postscript Print (Not to be confused with the printer you created that we called PostScript). In location will indicate File, Save As and the directory you want, but better considered by default faxout , and with the filename that we want. Note that in some applications, the Print dialog may be slightly different to the standard of Gnome.
• In the main window switch the Fax Entry efax socket method to File. We activate the buttons Single File and Multiple Files
• Multiple Files to select the files you want to send at one time. After closing the File window will list the files related to the text field to send Fax
• Now only remains for us to put the recipient's phone number and click Send Fax

Receive

If we have indicated efax with the-r, we shall see in the status bar a message efax Standing by to Receive calls. If not, we can enable or disable this feature with Standby / Stop. We can also answer a call manually to Answer Call.

Similar to the faxes we received by going to manage the List of Received faxes via the File menu.