OnAgendaTech

T he latest modems aspect that remains is to handle 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 which 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 caught my attention is that its GUI, efax-gtk, not translated into Spanish ... For the record not invite anyone to do the translation, because in this "guild" of the Open Source, the answer is often an obvious and unequivocal: "because you do it."

Rather than on its structure, which is quite clever, it would be worthwhile to summarize 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 a sub directory to store faxes in your home directory.

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

Settings

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 to the port eFax, which will automatically put it in queue or sent immediately.

We will need minimal configuration:

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

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

The rest I can leave it be.

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

Adding a Postscript-TCP/Socket

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

Now we select as indicated in the images:

We make network printer and choose TCP / Socket .... The combo box. 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 you've created to efax.

Starting at boot efax

You may want to have an active application in the taskbar at boot-up, for they help us Session = System menu> administration.

From the Programs tab incio him and introduce new flag as a command:

efax-gtk -r -s

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

Management

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

Send

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

If we Popup dialog option enabled when fax received from socket to socket tab, we will ask the phone number, can you tell it to put in queue (Queue fax) or send it immediately (Send Fax) without having to enter eFax window.

Pressing Tel 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 possibilities 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 as it avoids us having 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 as with the option of dialogue Generic Postscript Print (Not to be confused with the printer you created that we called PostScript). Location was indicated in File, Save As the directory we want, but best found by omission faxout and with the filename that we want. Note that in some applications, the Print dialog may be somewhat different to the standard Gnome.
• In the main window switch to the Fax Entry efax socket method to File. We activate the buttons Single File and Multiple Files
• With Multiple Files select the files you want to send at once. After closing the File list window related files appear in the text field to send Fax
• Now we are left only to 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.

Similarly we can to manage faxes received by going to List of received faxes via the File menu.