8.1 FAQ's

Q: How can I send/receive a fax from a person I'm talking to via telephone without having to hang up and dial again?

A: To receive a fax, just click on the Receive button once you hear the typical fax tones from the handset.
To send one, just leave the "Send to" gadget empty in the Transmit fax window and press "Send Now".

Q: STFax fails when trying to dial/answer in voice mode. How come?

A: In order to use STFax as a speakerphone, your modem must support this feature. Not all does, so it's likely yours doesn't.

Q: STFax seems to work fine when I set Log to Debug, but it fails otherwise. Why?

A: It seems like your modem is receiving commands too quickly: when Log is set to Debug, STFax writes a log line after each command, thus inserting a small delay between the commands.
You can solve this problem increasing the "Modem" timeout in the Timeouts preferences panel.

Q: When starting, STFax doesn't recognize my modem: it states it's a modem it can't handle. Can I do something to solve this problem?

A: If you are really sure that STFax should work with your modem, you can try increasing the "Modem" timeout: chances are that STFax sends the commands to the modem too quickly, causing some problems. If this doesn't work, please turn the Log gadget to Debug, save the prefs, quit, reload STFax and send me the file STFax:STFax.log

Q: Why the faxes I send with STFax appears very small after the transmission?

A: The resolution of a fax is very high. A typical fax in fine resolution is about 1728 x 2000 pixels. So you should use a quite big font to create the faxes. I use a Times 45, for example.
If you create your faxes with Wordworth, FinalWriter or whatever and the printer driver of STFax, you won't have this problem.

Q: I've got an US Robotics modem and STFax complains of an "Unknown error" when sending a fax. How can I avoid this?

A: Most of USR modems have a defective Class 2.0 chip. You can try to avoid this kind of problems setting the MAX9600 checkbox in the Modem panel of the preferences. This will force STFax not to use a speed higher than 9600 baud, which is more reliable.
If this don't work, set the CLASS1 checkbox too.

Q: I cannot receive faxes: STFax hangs up or crashes. Can you help me?

A: Check the following:

• The Fax In directory you specified in "Preferences/Paths..." exists.
• Your modem is not in auto answer mode (usually S0 different from 0).
  If so, add S0=0 to your init string. If you want STFax to automatically answer to incoming calls check the Auto Answer gadget in "Preferences/Misc..."

Q: I've got a 28.8 modem, but STFax reports a speed of 9600 when sending or receiving a fax. Shouldn't it go faster?

A: No. Fax transmissions follow a fixed standard, which allows the speed to be one of these:

Q: STFax doesn't behave correctly during a fax transmission. What should I do?

A: Check the configuration of your modem. If it still doesn't work go to the "Miscellaneous Prefs" requester and set the log level to Debug. Then, save the prefs, quit and reload STFax. Try to send (or receive) again the fax and send me the file STFax:STFax.log. This way I can see what went wrong and possibly tell you how to correct your configuration.

Q: The left side of the fax I send doesn't appear when the fax has been received. Why? What can I do to avoid this?

A: Normal fax machines (not faxmodems) cannot print the first columns of a standard size (1728 pixels wide) fax.
Thus, you'll have to increase the Left Margin in the Fax Preferences.