Chapter 1. Getting Started

Why You Need to Read this Guide

Would you like to be up and running as quickly as possible?  Would you like to save yourself time by learning the tips and tricks of getting the most out of World Fax?  The World Fax User Guide will teach you step-by-step how to send fax broadcasts using the World Fax Wizard and World Fax Client.

How to Use this Guide

The World Fax Client User Guide is organized in the way you will naturally need the information.  After the Overview and Installation, the World Fax Wizard chapter will show you how to setup a job.  The World Fax Client chapter covers the main interface, which is used for monitoring and managing jobs.  The Managing Your Fax Lists and Managing Your Fax Documents chapters are self-explanatory, but contain important information about the appropriate formats for your files.  The Reports chapter covers the various ways of viewing the results of your fax broadcast jobs.

Game Plan

  1. Start by reading the Overview to get a sense of how World Fax is designed to work.
  2. Install the World Fax Client modules on your system.
  3. Go through the steps of the World Fax Wizard, using the demo fax list and fax files that are part of the installation.  This will show you the basics of setting up a job without distracting you with the details of creating the files.
  4. Next, submit the "demo" job to the server and track the progress in the Client.  Try suspending the job, changing the schedule and looking at the reports.
  5. Once you have seen how things work, read the chapters for creating your own fax documents and fax lists.
Conventions used in this guide:

The "Stop" icon indicates a critical point that requires a decision or action on your part.

The "Light Bulb" icon indicates a point of information or explanation.

The "Star" icon indicates a tip or useful technique.

The "SB" icon indicates a note for Service Bureau clients.  Some World Fax functionality documented in this manual may be different for Service Bureau clients.

Menu | Commands.

Menu names and commands are shown in boldface, with vertical bars separating submenus or commands.  For example, if the File menu has a command called Save, then the manual will show this as File | Save.

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Procedures are itemized into steps and numbered accordingly.


Overview

The World Fax Client software includes several modules which are the users' means of communicating with the World Fax Server to conduct a fax broadcast.  From any computer that contains the client modules one can setup and manage the fax broadcasts.

For instance, client modules can be installed in a computer at home to control the fax broadcast jobs on the server computer which might be in a downtown office.

As another example, a fax service bureau can set up the client modules on customers’ computers so they can set up their own jobs. 

 
Text Box: World Fax Server
Text Box: World Fax Client

Internet

 

The World Fax Client modules include:

World Fax Client: 

The Client is the main interface that you will use.  It allows you to monitor and manage any fax broadcast jobs that have been submitted to the Server.

World Fax Wizard: 

The World Fax Wizard takes you through all the steps necessary to set up a fax broadcast job and submit it to the server.

Note: You will still need other application software such as a word processor to create the original document you wish to fax.

World Fax Capture Printer Driver:

The "World Fax Capture" printer driver is installed as one of the printers your can select from the printer setup command of any Windows application. It allows you to convert virtually any Windows document into a TIF image that is suitable for faxing. 

World Fax Fax List Viewer:

A fax list is a list of the recipients for your faxes. It includes names, phone numbers and other information that is particular for each recipient. The Fax List Viewer allows you to view and manage your fax lists, including the ability to remove duplicates and to maintain a “do not fax list”.

World Fax Cover Page Editor:

The Cover Page Editor enables you to create original documents in a faxable TIF format that include text and images. It also allows you to merge into these documents personalized information such as the name of the recipient as you fax them out. The personalized information will be different for each fax.  This program is documented in the Advanced Features Guide.

World Fax Client Features:

  • Multiple Jobs can be sent simultaneously or in sequence.
  • Different Fax Formats can be used including Tif, Dcx, Pcx, Bmp and TXT (text).
  • Job Priority allows you to control jobs according to their importance.The default priority is 5 and the highest priority is 1.
  • Job Mixing allows jobs of equal priority to be sent at the same time.
  • Job Schedule: Set time ranges for jobs to be sent only during specified hours.
  • Job Retries: Every job can have a different number of retries.  World Fax will attempt all lines in the phonebook at least once before starting with retries. When a job is finished the system will automatically build a new phonebook from all the error lines. This phonebook can then be inspected, changed or be used as a new phonebook for another retry.
  • Trial Fax: Specify a trial fax number that is separate from the main fax list.
  • Job Suspend:Jobs can be suspended and resumed later.  For suspended jobs you can change the priority, change the schedule, or delete the job.
  • Job Progress Reports:  Standard reports show detailed listings for each fax and overall job completion ratio.
  • Job Phonebook Processing. A different prefix and suffix can be attached to each job. (E.g. Billing codes)

What's New in Version 7.1

If you have some familiarity with World Fax Version 6, you will find that much of the functionality in Version 7.1 is the same as before, but with a new underlying structure.  The client portion has also been updated with a new look.

World Fax Version 7.1 has been re-designed to include the following: This includes:

  • Ability to handle extremely large fax databases.
  • Client / Server communication is now handled completely through TCP/IP. This gives the ability for the World Fax Client to communicate with the Server over the Internet.
  • The basic job log is now HTML-based.

Other features:

  • There is now a "Port Report" available in the client that shows a snapshot of what is happening on the ports.
  • There are Administrative Reports available as an Add-On module using the Crystal Reports-based format as with previous versions.
  • New job template management based on INI style files
  • One Crystal Report can be build for more than one job
  • Custom Crystal reports can be added to World Fax Crystal Reports.
  • Due to implementation of BASIC script programming language virtually any billing and dialing rules can be written by user.
  • All incoming faxes can be printed on any installed printer.
  • With the World Fax User Manager and User Database World Fax Administrator can create different users, enable, disable them and apply different billing rules to them.
  • Ability to specify retriable errors.