How to Send a Free Internet Fax

Sending a free Internet fax is simple and can be a great timesaver for personal or business use. Free Internet fax services are offered by a number of companies as part of a 30 day free trial membership. The service will allow you to send and receive faxes via email. Keep reading to learn how to take advantage of this useful service.

Instructions

1. First, sign up for free Internet fax service with a reputable online fax service company. You'll want to investigate the options for monthly plans should you decide to continue the service after your free trial. Prices range from as little as $10 per month to as much as $50 per month. The price of the service in part depends on how many pages of faxes you want to send and receive each month. Similar to a cell phone plan, the most common types of plans have a page limit for a set monthly fee. You would then pay a per-page surcharge of a few cents per page if you go over your designated limit.

2. Also consider whether you'd rather use a service that provides desktop software for sending faxes, either instead of or in addition to a web-based control panel for sending and receiving faxes. The disadvantage of only being able to send faxes via a desktop toolbar is that you won't be able to send faxes unless you are at the computer that has this software installed. If you work on a laptop most of the time, then this may not be an issue. But, if the software is installed on your PC at home or at the office, you might not be able to send faxes from the road without a web-based service. You should be able receive faxes wherever you happen to be, provided you have Internet access. Make sure the service you select provides confirmation that sent fax transmissions were actually received.

3. Now that you've done your homework, sign up for a free Internet fax trial membership. Some popular companies that offer this service are myfax.com, ringcentral.com, and efax.com. When you sign up, you'll receive an Internet fax number that people can use to send you faxes. Even though you'll be assigned an Internet fax number, you won't need to install a phone line anywhere, since the service works by converting faxes to email format and then sending them on to you.

4. To send a free Internet fax, follow the instructions provided by your fax services provider. This usually involves sending an email to [fax number]@your-fax-service-provider.com. For example, say you are sending a fax to 1-555-555-1212 and you have signed up with myfax.com. The "to" line of your email would be [e-mail]. This may vary from one company to the next, but this is a common way of sending faxes. You can type your fax into the body of the email, and you can generally send attachments too. When you hit send, your fax service provider receives the fax and automotically converts and sends your fax to the recipient's fax machine. The recipient will receive a paper fax on his end (unless, of course, he also uses an online fax service!).

5. At this point you might be wondering how to send hard copy faxes if this is all done by email. The way to send a free Internet fax of a hard copy document is to scan and convert it to a PDF before attaching it to your email. If you don't already have one, you can get a cheap scanner for this purpose. This is far less expensive than most fax machines, plus you'll save money on the machine, maintenance, toner and paper.

Tips & Warnings

• When deciding whether to continue with paid Internet fax service, remember that cheaper is not necessarily better. You should balance the quality of a service against its cost. Most people do fine with an Internet fax plan that costs no more than $20 per month.

• Using a free Internet fax service is a good way for your business to go green, since you won't waste as much paper or use as much toner (toner can be quite toxic). You can always print a fax if you need to.