About the Facsys Fax Printer

When Facsys Desktop software is installed on a workstation, a Facsys Fax Printer is automatically created. The printer is configured to automatically output to the FXC: or FXC: port using a custom Facsys printer driver.

The Facsys Fax Printer gives a user the ability to "print-to-fax" and to render fax message file attachments on the local workstation.

• Printing to Fax - If a user 'prints' a Windows document to the Facsys Fax Printer, the printed output is included as a file attachment in a new fax message.
  
  
• Attaching Document Files to Faxes - If  document files are attached to an outbound fax, and the 'local rendering' is enabled in Facsys, the Facsys Fax Printer is used to convert these attachments into a printed format at the local workstation.

The type of output created when 'printing to fax' or redenring attachments locally depends on the print driver used by the Facsys Fax Printer. By default, the Facsys Fax Printer is created using a custom "raster" driver included with Facsys. However, the Facsys Fax Printer's properties can be altered to use a different driver.

The Facsys Fax Printer can be instructed to print using a Windows PCL driver, a Windows Postscript driver, or the Facsys print driver. The supported driver types are discussed below:

Facsys Raster Mini-Driver (GDI)

This raster mini-driver prints at 200x200 dpi and outputs files into a pre-compressed TIFF-image format. Because of the compressed output, Facsys users benefit from faster transmission speeds across a network. In addition, the resolution of a resulting fax may be better than output to PCL or Postscript.

For instructions on creating a Facsys Fax printer.

NOTE: When the printers or print drivers are changed while editing a document, the formatting and layout of the document may change to accommodate the new driver. Therefore, if creating a document using a PCL or Postscript printer and then 'print to faxing' it using the Facsys driver, the layout of the faxed pages may change slightly from the original.

PCL/Postscript Print Drivers

Printing to a PCL or Postscript driver occurs at 300 or 600 dpi, but must then be converted into 200 dpi (for faxing). Therefore, when printing to this type of driver, the Facsys rendering services are required at the fax server to convert the fax into fax-image format. However, when printing to a PCL or Postscript printer, the layout of the faxed page will be identical to the pages displayed in the Windows program.

For instructions on creating a Facsys PCL/Postscript printer.

NOTE: Multiple Facsys printers can be created that all print to the same FXC: or FXC port. This allows users to switch among the printers, depending on their faxing needs.