Q: Can I receive a fax to my hard drive for later printing and/or
re-sending?
A: You can delay a fax transmissions up to 24 hours. For example, a fax
transmission could be delayed until the evening hours to reduce the cost
of transmission. However, you cannot delay when you print a fax job that
was received. After the fax is received by the printer and printed, it
is flushed from memory and cannot be retransmitted.
Q: What happens to incoming faxes if I am in the middle of a large printing
job?
A: If the printer is busy printing a document, the printer will save away
incoming faxes in memory, and then print them when it's done with the
current job.
Q: What happens if the printer runs out of paper when the printer is left
unattended? Does it place the incoming fax into a memory buffer?
A: The default job timeout is set to zero (no timeout); therefore, if the
printer runs out of paper, the printer buffers the queued fax print jobs
until you add paper. The printer continues to accept incoming faxes
until its buffer is full, at which point it no longer accept calls.
Q: How big is the buffer?
A: The amount of RAM allocated for fax operations is product dependent, and
is set by the PostScript parameter MaxFaxBuffer. MaxFaxBuffer sets an
upper bound on the number of bytes of printer RAM which may be used for
incoming and outgoing fax data. For the LaserWriter Select 360, the
value is 1,572,864 bytes, whereas the LaserWriter Pro 810 is 2,600,000
bytes. This amount of RAM is constant across printer models, and doesn't
increase if you add more RAM to the printer. The fax buffer is not
dedicated to solely fax operations, but can be used by other jobs.
However, when large fax jobs are processed, the amount of RAM that may
be used to process those fax jobs is the MaxFaxBuffer amount. In our
tests we received and buffered more than 20 pages of PostScript fax data
on a LaserWriter Select 360f with no difficulties. We have not tested
the upper limit, because "your mileage will vary" because of certain
variables: is it the fax job a PostScript fax file, are fonts
downloaded, faxing in Group 3 standard mode (200 dpi by 100 dpi), G3
fine mode (200 dpi by 200 dpi)?
Faxes sent in the PostScript file format are generally more compact than
traditional faxes, reducing the transmission time and cost. If the file
contains complex graphics or images then the size of the PostScript file
can exceed the size of raster fax. File size is reduced because
PostScript Fax uses the built-in LZW compression and decompression
capability of PostScript Level 2.
The memory required to handle fonts only becomes an issue when the
recipient's fax device is another PostScript Fax printer, and a
PostScript file fax is being sent. In this case, if the document being
sent requires fonts beyond the standard 35 fonts, the PostScript Fax
printer automatically sends the additional fonts along with the
PostScript file to the recipient's fax printer. PostScript fonts are
generally about 35 K in size and require approximately 35 seconds of
additional transmission time for each font transmitted.
It is possible the sender or receiver may have insufficient storage to
hold all of a transmitted fax data. Raster faxes can be transmitted in
multiple calls.
The transmission of a PostScript language file to a single destination
is always made in a single call. This decision to break up a PostScript
fax file transmission takes place only after the entire file is in
storage of the transmitting printer. If the file will not all fit in
storage, the job fails.
If the receiving fax printer runs out of memory during the processing
and printing of an incoming fax, it terminates the call. The sending
fax printer then terminates the transmission attempt and print a
confirmation page noting the transmission failure.
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