Paperless faxing

[ArielRogson]

I own a LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw, and while I some minor issues with how it works, for the most part I am quite satisfied.

But I run a "paperless" office, and I would like to reduce the amount of paper used when I fax.  Specifically, there are two things I would like to do with my printer:

1) Send a fax directly from the computer, rather than from paper.  That is, I would like to be able to open my document on the computer (which 99%+ of the time would be either a PDF or a Microsoft Word document), press a button somewhere (it could be a "Print to Fax" option), enter the fax number, and have the fax be sent.  As far as I can tell, the M225dw supports fax from software, but that option still requires the document to be loaded into the sheet feeder or scanner on the printer as physical paper.

2) Save the fax confirmation to the network, rather than print.  The M225dw is connected to my network, and I would like to have the fax confirmation be saved as a file on the network, rather than automatically print on paper.  This should be possible: after all, the printer supports scanning a document and saving it to a file on the network.

Does anyone know if either of these functions are possible with the M225dw?

Thanks in advance.

Ariel S. Rogson

[MKazi]

@ArielRogson

Let me take a moment to thank you for posting on the HP Support Forums. 

I understand that you have an HP LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw and you would like to send a fax from the computer rather than the printer. Secondly, you would like the fax confirmation not to be printed and have it saved somewhere. I'll be glad to assist you with this case.

I did some research on this and came across the user guide. The oage# 69 shows how to receive the faxes digitally and the page# 72 on how to send the fax through the software.

It would be better to have the full featured drivers installed for the printer to make such features work. The drivers may be downloaded from this link.

Hope this information helps. Let me know. Cheers! 🙂

[ArielRogson]

Hi, Mkazi.  Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, I have read the user guide, and the portions you refer to are not helpful.

I am not concerned with digitally receiving faxes: I rarely receive faxes, but I am pretty certain I have that feature set up anyway.  What I want to do is send faxes from the computer, including an electronic copy of the document in question.

Page 72 of the user's guide describes "sending" a fax from software.  But all the software in question does is manage the dialing: the document must still be loaded onto the scanner or sheet feeder.  That's what I want to address: being able to send a fax entirely from the computer, including the document.  As far as I can tell, the drivers do not support faxing a document entirely from the computer, where the document exists only digitally and not on paper.

Ariel S. Rogson

[MKazi]

@ArielRogson

Hi Ariel,

thank you for replying.

Have you tried using the Windows Fax and Scan?

Cheers!

[ArielRogson]

Hi, MKazi.

I have Windows Fax and Scan installed on my computer.  But according to that program, you need to be connected to a fax modem or a fax server.  I connect to the Internet over an Ethernet connection: I have no model installed or accessible.  And as far as I can tell, the LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw does not act as a fax server.  Is there a way to set up the printer as a fax server (it is connected to my network as well as my telephone line) that is not described in the User Guide?  If not, then Windows Fax and Scan is not the answer.

Sincerely yours,

Ariel S. Rogson

[Chimney_83]

Greetings @ArielRogson, I am the @Chimney_83. It looks like you were interacting with @MKazi, but he is out of the office today so I'll take over from here.

Thanks for the reply, you will not be able to access fax from your printer. 

But if you search on any search engines online, you will see a lot of companies that provide you the option to send and receive digital fax without even have a phone line. 

I will not be able to name or endorse any, in particular, please do search online and I am sure you will find one that suits your requirement. 

Hope this helped. 

[ArielRogson]

Hi, Chimney_83.  Thanks for the information.  I know there are digital fax services out there.  But as the printer I have includes fax capability already, I don't need to resort to outside services for faxing.  I just want to know whether I can use the MFP to fax without having to print the document first and then feeding the paper document back through the scanner to send a fax.

I appreciate that you have pointed me to "workarounds" for my question.  But I am not looking for workarounds.  I have an MFP that is capable of faxing, and I am using it for that function.  I just want to know if I can use the MFP in a manner that would seem (to me) to be entirely reasonable, and certainly within its capabilities.  The MFP has to scan a document into electronic form anyway to send a fax: can it perform that functionality starting with an electronic document, rather than a paper one?

Sincerely yours,

Ariel S. Rogson

[Chimney_83]

Thanks for the reply, all fax enabled printers only work on phone lines and not over a modem. 

If you would like to use the fax option on your printer, please connect the phone line directly to the printer from the wall outlet and then use the line out port on the printer to connect to your phone.

Fax server option is not available on your printer. 

Make sure to use a 2 prong phone cable instead of 4 prong phone cable to connect the phone line to the printer. 

Hope this answered your concern.

[ArielRogson]

Hi, Chimney_83.  Thanks for the additional information.

We seem to have moved far afield from my original questions.  While all the additional information is interesting, it doesn't really answer my questions, which are as follows:

1) Can I send a fax, using my LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw, where the document is stored in the computer, rather than requiringn the document be scanned into the printer?  If yes, how do I accomplish this?  I don't care whether I have to enter the telephone number of the fax on the printer or in software on the computer (although the latter would seem the more obvious choice).

2) Can I configure my LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw to save fax confirmation pages to my network drive, rather than printing out the fax confirmation on paper?

The reason for both questions is simple.  I run (as much as possible) a paperless office.  I want to avoid printing paper unless absolutely necessary.  It is nice to have the confirmation page to show the fax went through, but I don't want to have to turn around and scan the document just to save it on my network drivve, since that wastes paper.  Similarly, printing out the document just to feed it back into the printer for fax purposes wastes paper, since I immediately shred the document after faxing.

All I want to know if the LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw is capable of these functions.  It ought to be: the printer comes with printer drivers that can convert a document into a format that can be printed, so it would seem a simple thing to prepare a printer driver that converts a document into a format that can be faxed.  And the printer is capable of saving a scanned document to the network, so it would seem a simple thing to save the fax confirmation page to the network as well.

If these functions are not currently supported by the LaserJet Pro MFP M225dw, I would suggest that they ought to be added to the next version of the software bundle.  In this age of resource conservation, it is almost a crime to force documents to be printed on paper just to support fax operations, when the documents will immediately be shredded.

Sincerely yours,

Ariel S. Rogson

[MKazi]

@ArielRogson

Hi Ariel,

I did some further investigation on this and came across the user guide.

• Page# 69 - Step 5 (Optional): Configure settings for receiving digital faxes (Windows).
• Page# 72 - Send a fax using the HP software (Windows).

Hope this helps. Take care!