FaxDirect Help Centre

Finding your way around

The app has two halves. Received holds the faxes people send you; Send holds everything going the other way. Switch between them at the top of the sidebar.

The Received side: sidebar, fax list, and preview.

• Received: Inbox for faxes that have arrived, Archive for ones you have filed away, and Trash.
• Send: New Fax to write one, Drafts for unfinished ones, then Outbox, Sent Receipt and Failed! to follow what you have sent.
• The bottom of the sidebar: Contacts, Settings, Help, and About.
• The numbers beside each section show how many faxes it holds. The "Unread" count above the list is different — it counts only what you have not opened yet.

Reading faxes you receive

Faxes arrive in the Inbox on their own — the app checks the mailbox about once a minute while it is open, and shows a card in the corner of the screen when one lands.

A fax open in the preview — zoom, rotate, print and save live in the toolbar.

• Open a fax: click a row to read it on the right. Unread faxes are bold with a blue edge, and opening one marks it read. The arrow keys walk down the list.
• Zoom, rotate, print, save: the buttons above the page zoom between 50% and 200%, turn a sideways fax, print it, or save it as a PDF. A multi-page fax is one long strip — scroll down.
• Find an old fax: "Search Caller ID's" finds a fax by who sent it. "AI Content Search" is different — it reads the words printed on the pages, so you can search for a patient name or a drug.
• Flag one to come back to: click the small flag on a row to mark it for follow-up. The flag is stored with the fax, so it shows on every computer using the account.
• File it away: Archive moves a fax out of the Inbox and Unarchive brings it back. Delete moves it to Trash, where Restore undoes it.

Sending a fax

Click Send at the top of the sidebar and the New Fax page opens. Say who it goes to, add your pages, and send. Everything you attach is merged into one fax.

The New Fax page — recipients, message, and attachments as chips.

• Type the number in the To box — brackets, spaces and dashes are fine. For several recipients, separate them with commas; each one gets their own copy and nobody sees who else received it.
• Or pick a contact: start typing a name and your saved contacts drop down. Click one to fill in its number.
• Write the message: whatever you type in the large message box becomes the cover page. Subject prints at the top of it.
• Add your pages: Attach PDF takes PDF files — or drag them onto the window. Scan pulls pages straight off your scanner.
• Faxing from Word or anything else: in the other program choose File, then Print, and pick the FaxDirect printer. FaxDirect opens with the document already attached.
• Check before you send: Preview shows the finished fax, cover page and all. If a page is sideways, rotate it there and click Save to fix it properly.
• Finish it later: Save files the fax under Drafts. Drafts are shared across computers on the same account.

Replying and writing on a fax

Reply sends the fax you are reading back to whoever sent it, and lets you write on the pages first — so a form can be filled in and returned without printing anything.

The markup editor — typed comments, the red pen, and checkmarks, all burned onto the pages when you send.

• Start a reply: open a fax in your Inbox and click Reply. The pages are attached for you and the sender's number fills in To, which is then locked.
• Write on the pages: the markup window opens automatically. The T tool adds a typed comment where you click, the pen draws freehand to circle or cross out, and the checkmark ticks a box. Everything is red and handwritten.
• Move or remove a mark: drag a comment by the blue bar above it, or a checkmark by the mark itself. The small x on each removes it; the undo arrow takes off whatever you added last.
• Finish and come back: Done writes the marks onto the pages and the attachment shows a count. The blue Markup button on it reopens the editor — marks stay changeable right up until you send.
• Forwarding instead: Forward passes a fax on to any number you type — to several at once, if you like. Plain Forward sends it exactly as it arrived; Edit & Forward opens it on the New Fax page first so you can write on the pages, with the To box open to any number.

Keeping track of what you sent

A fax you send moves through the sections under Send, so you always know where it got to. These lists refresh themselves — you do not have to click anything.

The Send side — Outbox, Sent Receipt, and Failed! with Retry Again.

• Outbox: faxes still on their way, each showing Waiting, Sending or Queued. A blinking "Still Trying…" means the server is still working on it.
• Sent Receipt: the confirmation for every fax that got through, showing the number and the time. A card pops up in the corner when one is delivered, with its own chime — a different sound from an arriving fax unless you change them in Settings.
• Failed!: anything that could not be delivered — usually a busy line, a wrong number, or a number that does not answer as a fax. You get a red row for the fax and a notice from the fax server, and when the server explains why, it appears on the red row's Status line.
• Send it again: click the green Retry Again on the red row to send the same pages to the same number as a fresh fax. It appears in Outbox, and the old failed row and its notices clear out of Failed! on their own — into the Trash under Send, where they can still be restored.
• If there is no Retry Again: a fax sent from another computer has no copy of the pages here, so the red row offers no Retry Again. Open the fax server's notice instead and use Send Again — that clears the notice, leaving the red row to be deleted by hand.

Setting things up

Worth doing once, on the Settings and Contacts pages, so every fax you send looks right and you hear about the ones that matter.

Notification settings — separate sounds for received and sent faxes.

• Sign in: under Receiver, enter your user ID and password and click "Connect to FaxDirect". A green "Connected as…" badge replaces the boxes.
• Your sending details: under Sender, enter the account ID and licence key you were given, then your fax number and fax machine name — these print on the cover page of everything you send.
• Cover page and footer: a "Cover page default message" is used whenever you leave the message box empty. The footer starts with a confidentiality notice — edit it, clear it, or put it back with Restore Default.
• Alerts and sounds: choose whether a card pops up, how long it stays, and whether it makes a sound. Received and sent faxes have separate switches, and each direction can ring with its own .wav — Test plays whatever is set.
• The FaxDirect printer: "Install FaxDirect Printer" adds FaxDirect to the print list of Word and every other program. Windows will ask for administrator approval.
• Contacts: add the numbers you fax often so you can pick them by name. Edit loads one back into the form at the top of the page.

Updating FaxDirect

FaxDirect updates through the Microsoft Store. On the About page, click Check for Updates: the Store opens on the FaxDirect page and the app closes itself — an update can only install while FaxDirect is closed. If an update is shown, click it, let the Store finish, then open FaxDirect again; signing back in is automatic.

Check for Updates — FaxDirect closes so the Store can install.

Still stuck?

If something is not working the way this page describes, get in touch and we will help you sort it out — visit faxdirect.ca or netlayers.ca.