My Revenge

[etoven]

Everybody who has access to a computer scanner has access to the technology. There are many free optical character recognition programs that will handle basic text documents, and the most advanced OCR options (which can handle more advanced conversions, from things like handwritten documents) I've seen are around US $500--hardly a tremendous investment for an individual who really wants it, and beans for any small business.

Compare that to the expense of operating a fax machine, including the need to pay for a phone line, and the limited number of recipients (as they also require a machine), and the fact that faxing is basically good only for communication, whereas a scanner can be used for other purposes, and I can't imagine anyone consciously choosing fax over scanning for any reason other than unfamiliarity with scanning technology.

I have a $300 office jet that can do all the crap you speak of including conversion to PDF, emailing, and scanning with it's built in document feeder.

That being said, Fittisize is correct, faxing is still faster and easier. Faxing is 2 steps, insert the document, and dial the number. Emailing a PDF is a minimum of at least 5 steps.

Also, my fax machine FAX's over the internet, so no I don't pay the phone company for another phone line. Plus new faxes have a host of modern features over your grandmothers, old brother fax. For example, my fax, faxes in color, over Ethernet, and also can store and forward faxes to another office, and receive delivery conversation reports that include a image of the fax that the user received, sent back to me.