fax software

I have the same problem(s) with Tiger's fax capabilities. I find it very hard to enter a correct fax number; the address book integration is always trying to "guess" what I'm typing and change it. Entering a simple fax number because a tedious and often frustrating affair. For instance, if I type "1866" it ends up substituting (somehow, don't ask me how) "Williams D866." It gets worse.

But my biggest problem with the Tiger fax capability is that it doesn't handle multiple targets well. I don't mean one or two. I want to send a fax to a couple hundred people on a regular basis. The limitations I have:

1. No obvious way to manage a large database of fax numbers. Putting them in Address Book is not an option, since I often only have the number -- doing so would make a mess of my Address Book database.

2. No workable scripting solution.

3. Lousy reporting on fax status. I'm very suspicous of Tiger's fax reliability, because I've seen it silently fail several times. It also doesn't provide much in the way of logging.

4. No fool-proof, reliable error reporting. I need to know which ones worked, which ones didn't and why.

Hear hear! Autocomplete makes sense when typing someone's name, but Apple (are you listening?) should turn it off as soon as I start to type a new number into the blank fax number field. It's senseless to take a number that I want to type (say, "1866-580-2325") and interrupt what I typing so I end up with "D866." Better yet, if I keep typing the number, restore what I started with an let me finish it!

For those that noted that you "cannot send to multiple recipients," I think you can, in a limited way. For a few recipients, you can separate them by commas. However, you're right in regard to managing fax distribution lists -- there's really nothing suitable in Tiger that supports it.

I'd love to hear from a few other Fax STF users. Looks like mixed reviews, some pro and some con.

A bit off topic, but since you mentioned:

Epson and Fujitsu seem to be doing some good things with their scanners.

We just bought the latest Hewlett-Packard Color Laserjet multifunction printer (fax, scanner, color laser). For $900 you'd think it would come with some decent software but, a word of warning: We've tried to get their OS/X printer software (which includes the faxing, scanning modules) to work on two different Macs (10.4.6) and completely failed. HP seems to acknowledge that it doesn't work well (the tech rep actually gave up and told me they "usually" have better luck, but that's it not reliable).

You know, the Fax Address Book Auto Complete Bug has been around so long now, that we went out and purchased a standalone fax machine.

I hate to say it, but after n months we ran out of patience. Apple doesn't seem to fix the issue. What to do? We figured we had to go back to old school. An extra device again, dedicated to a single task. And, it solves the scan + fax multiple pages issue (HP?) we had to circumvent via Word.