NDC comm CompuFax user manual Preface, Overview

Preface

Overview

CompuFax will run on VAX/ VMS and OpenVMS versions 5.4 through 7.1, as well as on Alpha-AXP OpenVMS versions 6.1 through 7.1.

Fax documents may be created as ordinary text files and sent with a simple command. Documents may be sent either via the CompuFax command processor, via the VMS print mechanism, or via VMS MAIL.

Starting with CompuFax Version 3.2, faxes may be received and printed or viewed. File conversion and bitmap editing facilities have been added to facilitate the creation of overlay files.

Starting with CompuFax Version 4.0, faxes may also be submitted to the CompuFax fax server from a Personal Computer (PC).

CompuFax permits inter-node communications; that is, fax documents may be sent across a network to another node, which then transmits them by fax modem.

CompuFax provides for automatic look-up of fax phone numbers in a database. Automatic look-up may be wildcarded, which permits sending the same document to multiple destinations (broadcasting,) with a single command.

Commands may be issued from the command line, via a command file, or via directives embedded in a text file that is to be faxed. Multiple files may be concatenated into a single fax document. Using embedded directives, a single text file may be separated into multiple sections, which are then transmitted as individual documents. Documents are queued and may be scheduled for later transmission. Documents may be assigned different priorities and will be transmitted in priority order.

If a document cannot be sent immediately, it is automatically re-queued for later retransmission. The maximum number of retries and the length of time between retries are selectable.

Mail-merge (form letter) operations are supported where information from a database may automatically be inserted into each copy of a document sent. Full activity and status reporting is supported with notification via VMS Mail and/ or a broadcast message to the user on completion of document transmission. Status reporting optionally may be enabled or disabled. A library of callable routines has been provided, which allows users to customize CompuFax to use their own database, instead of the one that is provided with CompuFax.

CompuFax can control up to 100 fax devices (modems) simultaneously and will route fax transmissions to the device with the shortest queue. Multiple data formats may be faxed, including ASCII text, T4 format and PostScript files. Text files may be landscaped (rotated by 90 degrees) to allow documents with long text lines to be transmitted.

Two different fonts are provided with CompuFax and users have the option of adding more. Various fonts may be selected within a document. CompuFax files may be overlaid (merged) with T4 format image files. Fax coversheets are supported.