What is the best to add fax capabilities/interface to a Website?

[treebean]

I believe this is the correct forum for this question. I searched everywhere on TekTips and few other sites to gather some information on this topic and I am having very little luck finding a definitive answer/method. The question came from a potential client who wants to have fax capabilities on his Web site. I did a search on a few script Web sites and found that PHP and Perl would most likely be the best programming option. My questions are as follows:

[ul][li]what is the lowest cost option for offering fax capabilities through a web site?[/li]
[li]what scripts are available?[/li]
[li]do I build this feature into a site or buy and off-the-shelf package? what freeware is available?[/li]
[li]what off-the-shelf packages are there and what recommendations are there for vendors/programs?[/li]
[li]can the user interface be modified for an off-the-shelf option?[/li][/ul]

I am just throwing this question out there to see if any other web site designers have done this for their clients. Do you have any recommended solutions? Any constructive advice would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[jvdboom]

Hello,

My ISP even gives me a (phone)number where they can fax me on it(pdf) or use the answering machine there can be also settings
There is possible a (free/cheap)service that you can send mail to somwhere and it will be faxed
It's also possible to fax through a modem on the webserver

 

[treebean]

Thanks jvdbloom for your input. Could you explain the option for faxing through the modem on the webserver? If I understand this, it could also be a function of my host company.

To clarify, the client wants to include a fax number and feature on it's web site yet he doesn't physically own a fax, so I was looking at web-enabled fax capabilities. I have checked out several freeware programs but not how to incorporate them into the Web site yet.

I mat be unclear here but I am just trying to get my thoughts down.