flexfax: Simple "portable" fax printer for HylaFAX

[Thomas Waldmann <ThomasWaldmann@gmx.de>]

Hi!

I am looking for a simple and portable / platform independent method to
"print" faxes from misc. clients (Windows 9x, NT, Linux, etc.) to a HylaFAX
server.

I found a script (in mgetty-sendfax package) which filters out a magic string
<faxnumber:012345678> out of a postscript file.

If one would install that as a printer filter in /etc/printcap and configure
this printer also in Samba, one would have a simple, but highly portable
solution (and there would be no need for client software, that needs to be
installed and configured [except a PS printer driver]).

The user then could simply include a string <faxnumber:453453> anywhere in
the document, print it to the fax printer (no matter if he uses windoze or
unix) and it would get sent (the script may remove the string from the file
before sending).

BUT: I was not successful in getting a verbatim string into postscript output
(I tried with M$ Word97 and with StarOffice 5.1a/Linux). Both programs had
single characters in their postscript output, followed by coordinates(?).
StarOffice even had the characters in hex notation.
I tried different fonts with no success.

So does anybody know how to get a verbatim string into postscript output ?

I also tried SuSEfax client (Java) : does not behave correctly here, esp. the
buttons behave very strange.

WHFC: is only for Windows 9x/NT

misc. Tcl/TK or X11 based solutions: not for Windows.

So what do YOU use as platform independent, easy-to-use fax client ?

Thomas