SANE and faxing

[Peter Schwenke]

Hi David,

David Ryder wrote:
> Hi,
> Feisty with SANE and efax
> 
>...
> I am fax intensive but not to the point of needing/wanting the hassle of
> installing hyalafax or mgetty-sendfax, neither of which I have been able
> to successfully install anyway.

I've been using xsane mgetty-sendfax (rarely send faxes, though) for a
long time so I'll tailor the answers to help you know where to look.

> 
>     1) I a have two big (to me) problems here. XSANE will interface with
>     gimp, copy, save, email and supposedly fax. I have efax installed
>     with efax-gtk as the front end. Works like a treat. I send/receive
>     using /dev/ttsy0 via CUPS localhost:<port number> - all via the gui.
>     efax integrates perfectly with the Writer etc.
> 
>     But XSANE, using its default setup for efax, only queues the
>     'project' (where?) and does not send it.

The project name will be a directory. I think it is in your home
directory by default.  I usually prefix it with /tmp/ so that they get
cleaned up automatically.

A command will need to be run on the files created in that directory to
queue the fax.  That will be whatever the efax equivalent to faxspool is.

Since it is integrated with cups there must be some way of doing "lpr -P

So, you don't know which efax commands the GUI is actually running?  I
haven't really used efax but have just brought down the source package
to have a quick look (I know you're probably not a developer but the
README file has some hints, "apt-get source
efax-gtk" and look at README file in efax-gtk-3.0.14) but will need to
get on with something else...

The chances are that the setup you require will be in either

/etc/efax-gtkrc
or
$HOME/.efax-gtkrc

and may need to be plugged into the the xsane preferences/setup/fax screen

> 
>     I tested it communicating with my modem by changing the send command
>     to -d /dev/ttsy0 and the modem 'sent' the fax but of course without
>     waiting for a dialtone, dialling or hasndshake - but at least it
>     communicasted so my hardware is OK with it.
> 
>     Please, has anybody got XSANE working with efax or can anybody help
>     me? I have spent weeks googling, reafding posts etc. Unfortunately
>     the XSANE manual leaves a lot to be desired.
> 
>     2) Is there a way of putting a 'scan' button in Writer?

It is already there.  It is a little strange to use.

Insert/Picture/Scan/Select Source  to set it up
Insert/Picture/Scan/Request to do the scan

Note that you can't run Xsane at the same time because it won't find the
scanner devices (since it is locked).

You can also set up a fax device in OpenOffice by setting up a new printer.

1. cd /usr/lib/openoffice/program/
2. ./spadmin

etc


-- 
                                                              ...Peter