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Fax explained

Sending a fax from Outlook: the address book and its illusions

Outlook sends no faxes, any more than Gmail does. It can, however, store a fax number in a contact card and display it like any other recipient.

Short answer

Outlook has no fax sending function. Three routes exist: the corporate connector, meaning a fax server wired into Exchange, the only genuinely native integration and one confined to organisations that run it; an operator's e-mail-to-fax gateway, which requires an account; or uploading a PDF directly to a web service, with no registration. In all three, the number still has to be checked somewhere other than the address book.

The three routes

  1. 1

    The corporate connector

    A fax server wired into Exchange makes the send look like an ordinary message. It is the only native integration, and it exists only where an employer has installed and administers it.

  2. 2

    The e-mail-to-fax gateway

    You address a message to an address supplied by an operator and the attachment becomes the pages. An account and a subscription are needed, and the message stays in your sent items.

  3. 3

    Uploading the PDF directly

    Save the attachment as a PDF of 10 MB at most, then fill in the form fields yourself: recipient name, sender name, subject, sender e-mail address and a ten-digit French fax number.

A recipient picked from an address book is not a verified recipient

An Outlook contact card has fax number fields, business and home. Once filled in, the number appears alongside the name exactly as an e-mail address does: a misaddressed fax then looks precisely like a correctly addressed e-mail. The difference shows up after sending. An e-mail sent to an address that does not exist comes back with a failure notice; a fax number that is valid but wrong goes through, nobody warns you, and the page prints out in a stranger's office. So read the number back on the form, digit by digit, rather than the name shown in the address book.

Frequently asked questions

Could Outlook ever send faxes?
Some older Windows setups let the machine drive a fax modem, and the mail client could hook into it. On a current computer, with no modem and no analogue line, that route no longer exists in practice.
Can the address book be used for sending directly?
A number stored in a contact card only becomes a send if a connector or a gateway reads it. On a web service you retype the number by hand, which is also the last chance to check it.
Which files can be sent?
On this site, PDF only, up to 10 MB. Office attachments therefore have to be exported to PDF beforehand; the conversion fixes the layout, which is preferable for a document that will be printed at the other end.

Send a fax now

The form fits on one page: a PDF, a recipient and a return address. No account, no card.

Open the form

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