Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 06:42 PM

Funnily enough, that company is still out there - but the later comments imply that you can fake it without needing their special sw anyway.

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: GUEST,albert
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 06:31 PM

hey good idea!!
any one knows how turn a fax machine into a printer?

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 09:41 AM

(contimued) If the staves on the original are fairly bold it works OK, otherwise SharpEye spits the dummy and refuses to process it.

If anyone would like to see a sample .GIF let me know at [e-mail].

BTW I'm only using the shareware version of FaxMail which appears to be eminently usable for incoming faxes. Furthermore it only occupies about 2 Meg or so of hard disc space. From memory (no pun) the Symantec stuff needed about 50 Meg - forget it!

So as I said earlier grab a derelict fax and send off a couple of .GIFs to MMario of any unpublished tunes for the DT. Put a free ad in your local school newsletter!

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 17 Oct 01 - 09:30 AM

I know that this subject will only interest the impecunious and/or adventurous, so I'll be brief.

IT WORKS well enough by simply connecting a telephone lead between the fax and your modem (no batteries or resistors or other electronis guff). I installed the FaxMail Shareware from ElectraSoft, plugged in the fax machine to the modem incoming telephone line socket, turned the modem on, clicked on Event Monitor, inserted a sheet of music in the fax, dialed '5' and pressed SEND in the fax, clicked on 'Receive Fax' in FaxMail - and in a few seconds the fax machine whirred into life and started 'ralking' to my PC.

When it was finished I used one of the graphics programs that read .DCX files (I have Wang Imaging that came with Windows, or Paint Shop Pro) ti read the picture from the QUEUE file directory created by FaxMail and hey presto there it is. I then saved it as a more familiar file type such as GIF (which retains the detail of music images far better than JPG's and is much smaller.

The results for music scanning? I guess it depends on your fax but the quality of modern scanners is certainly better than my 10 year old fax. Nevertheless it does work fine. The real test for me was whether SharpEye Optical Music Recognition software w

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 17 Sep 01 - 02:54 AM

Hi Guest, I was simply saying that I'm no longer a regular visitor, let alone someone who can offer the long term commitment to receive raw music, do the notation, editing and archiving. There are people here who do this - my sincere thanks goes to them.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 06:26 AM

John,

I'm no longer a real Mudcatter???

Don't understand what you mean. Could you explain, please.

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: GUEST,John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 02:23 AM

Abby, I must admit that i'm still keen to have a dabble, and your yhread gives me some more ideas.

I'm no longer a real Mudcatter, but if one of the regulars had fax-modem capable of receiving fax files from music contributors, she/he could then farm out for notation via email. This assumes that contributors are able to fax pages of music to a single point (say in USA).

The other benefit of either the original idea, or your variant, is that you can send many pages on a fax (as opposed to the time consuming process of scanning single pages and saving as individual .bmp or .tif files. The newer versions of Sharpeye music OCR software allow you to process multiple image files in batch mode - while you're having a meal or a sleep. I haven't priced them but document feeders for scanners are supposed to be extremely expensive.

I've only just discovered that I received a free copy of WinFax by Symantec when I bought my Netcomm Roadster Modem. I'll give it a whirl in the next week or so.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: Abby Sale
Date: 13 Sep 01 - 07:45 PM

If you have a second phone line, fax the thing to your computer fax-modem. Save the image As, (.tif or whatever) & you have the attachable-to-email image. Probably still more assle than buying a cheap scanner.

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Sep 01 - 12:12 PM

here is one free fax service that seems to still be operating ...you do it online..(others have quit)http://www.e.kth.se/~e93_ych/internet/fax.html

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: GUEST,John in Brisbane
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 10:11 PM

I have never used any Inbound Fax software, so I got quite a shock when I visited www.electrasoft.com (the site of the fax machine documentation)to find that their FaxMail was not Freeware but is shareware and costs $59 USD - you can probably buy a low end scanner for that price. I didn't see the reference to Netzip.exe in the documentation.

The only Fax Freeware that I could locate in a hurry is called 'FreeCall Centre' at the 'Only Freeware' site. There is a Pro version which costs real money, but the Freeware version looks like it could do the trick.

I'm only operating on intuition here. Any fax software users around?

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 05:51 PM

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 05:49 PM

Where does one get Netzip.exe, which the popup tells me is necessary to get this?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: hesperis
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 10:38 AM

And this should help them get the software: blue clicky

Thanks. Now, instead of wishing I had a scanner, I'm wishing for an old fax machine... LOL

Subject: RE: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: MMario
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 08:54 AM

thanks john! yup - there are bunches of fax machines sitting around - this could help people get scan capability.

Subject: Tech: Turn Your Fax Into A Scanner
From: GUEST,John in Brisbane
Date: 12 Sep 01 - 08:00 AM

With the advent of email a lot of fax machines lie around as dust collectors. Ever wanted to send a Mudcatter some music via email, but don't have a scanner? http://www.electrasoft.com/faxscan2.zip details how you can scan documents using a fax machine and a slightly doctored phone handset cable.

I haven't tried it, but the instructions seem clear enough. There's a text file plus an illustration in .BMP format to guide you through - it doesn't require fancy tools beyond a pair of pliers. If you have an old phone cable it shouldn't cost more than a couple of bucks, plus the FaxMail associated software is free. (What it doesn't say is that if you disconnect the cable in between usgae occasions, then the battery should last for years).

Photocopy some music from your favourite family tome, scan them and then send them off to MMARIO to fill the gaps in the DT database.

Regards, John [e-mail]