PMFax, PMail Gateway Conversion for HydraFax

PMFax
PMail Fax Gateway Conversion for HydraFax
By Carey Hildebrand
© Copyright 1998 All rights reserved

Although the writer has made and taken every reasonable precaution in writing and documenting this computer program, and manual, he does not, and can not, guarantee that is safe to be used by all persons, in all environments, under all circumstances.

This computer program and all the information herein, included with it, related to it, and associated with it, that is supplied by the writer, his associates, and/or related companies, at any and all time(s), is to be used and/or implemented at the user’s discretion. The writer, and any and all associates, are not responsible for loss of data, down time, wages, profits, revenue, costs of re-creating lost data, damage to equipment or software, or any other disturbances related to a malfunction thought to be related to this computer program or documentation/correspondence, or for any claims by you or any other party on your behalf.

There are no warranties, guarantees, or official technical support included or implied with this computer program, manual, correspondence, and all related materials.

Use at your own risk.

How To Generate Faxes From Pegasus

Fax System Setup

HydraFax Gateway
PMFax
Fax Header File
PConfig Set-up

Sample PConfig Screen

Pegasus Mail Resources

HydraFax

PMFax Contact Information

Sample of Pegasus Mail Message

Sample Fax #1

Sample Fax #2

Terms and Conditions

PMFax is to be openly distributed at no charge, to people that find it useful for their needs. It is not for sale or resale by any individuals or organizations, nor for them to help generate profit or revenue, without the written permission of this writer.

Overview

PMFax is a DOS gateway interface program, written by Carey Hildebrand, and used as an interface between Pegasus Mail and HydraFax, to allow users on a LAN to send faxes from their familiar e-mail program.

It is assumed that the individuals using this program and manual are familiar with Pegasus, a widely used, powerful and versatile email program, easily available on the Internet. Pegasus is available at no-charge, under terms and conditions. The purchase of manuals to help support it’s development is welcome, but not mandatory.

HydraFax 3.5 is a commercial program, also available off the Internet. It can be used on a trial basis for 30 days, after which it must be purchased to continue using it. It is also a powerful and versatile program.

Their versatility is what drew me to them, and made it easy to develop an interface between the two.

For details on either Pegasus or HydraFax, see their websites (mentioned later) or their associated manuals.

I have used and tested PMFax on Windows95/98 using 32 bit Pegasus 3.x, WFW3.11 using 16 bit Pegasus 3.x, and DOS PMail 3.4, running on a Netware 3.12 LAN. And it worked very well.

How To Generate Faxes From Pegasus

It is assumed that you are familiar with the typical use of the Pegasus Mail program.

Open a Pegasus Mail "New Standard Mail" window.

In the "To:" field, enter the Gateway Name, a slash ("/"), your fax recipient’s name, a pound or number symbol ("#"), and the fax number as you would dial from a manual fax machine, immediately following the symbol.

Example: FAX/Joe Blow #555-1212

You can also use the same format in the "CC:" field to send a copy to someone else. As well, you could put more than one recipient in the "To:" and/or the "CC:" fields, separated by commas, as you would with e-mail or local mail addresses.

Example: FAX/Joe Blow #555-1212,FAX/Susy Q#1-123-555-1212,Jack@Somewhere.com

All the above people in the example would receive a copy of the message. The fax recipients would see a graphic header that you created to appear as a formal and typical fax cover sheet.

This interface between the two programs was intended to send basic fax messages. Any binary file attachments would be sent as text garbage, and should not be attempted. Unexpected and unwanted results would occur, as well as likely major paper usage by the receiver’s fax machine.

Straight ASCII text files can be attached and sent as faxes, though I don’t normally recommend this, as MIME documentation is also visible to the viewer at the other end. PMFax does no filtering or structuring of the message body text.

Fonts in the message body should be left at their default settings, or once again the message area would be littered with garbage text, due to the format codes. HydraFax interprets the text as Courier 10 point, which is an acceptable font size and style for a basic fax message, and displays nicely.

Be careful NOT to use commas, slashes or pound symbols, etc., in the "To:" field. These symbols are used for formatting the addresses. Spaces and hyphens are acceptable.

If "Confirm Reading" if checked off on the "Send Message" window, and upon successful conversion and transfer to the gateway, PMFax will place a confirmation mail message in your home mail box. If your new mail window is open, the notification should pop-up there shortly after your fax message was sent, or click on the "Open or re-scan your new mail folder" icon button. Error messages should be returned in this same manner, but only if the "Confirm Reading" box is checked.

If you are on a Netware LAN, you will not receive a Netware pop-up notification box, that you are familiar with when receiving normal mail. This may be added in the future.

Fax System Setup

HydraFax Gateway

A shared gateway directory must be set-up in HydraFax on at least one work station. I prefer to use a shared common directory located on a file server, for all users to access. Be sure to set-up the required file privileges.

HydraFax must be running on the computer that has the gateway scanning set-up, at all times, so that it can scan for, convert, and fax the files.

On the HydraFax menu bar, select "Options", select "Gateway", in the "Scan shared directory" field, enter the shared directory path. Check off "Directory scan enabled".

For specifics to using HydraFax, refer to the HydraFax manuals.

PMFax

I suggest that you place the PMFAX.EXE file in the Pegasus directory.

Fax Header File

It is expected that anyone using this system would like to have a graphic header at the top of their fax, showing their company logo, address, and/or some other picture graphic. So this is mandatory for proper PMFax generation.

There is a sample/example file in Microsoft Word format, called "FAXHEAD.DOC". The document that you create to be at the top of your faxes (on the first page only) must be printed to a file, using a HP LaserJet Plus print driver.

In the case of using MS Word, add a printer of this type to your Windows environment. After creating your header, and assuming that you are using MS Woord, select FileMenu>Print, select the "HP LaserJet Plus" printer, check off "Print to file," you will then be given a chance to select the directory location and file name. Place the file in your PMAIL directory. Name the file using the DOS 8.3 convention (example: "FAXHEAD.PRN".) See "Run for outgoing mail" in the "PConfig Set-up" section.

Note: You could create more than one fax sheet header, save them under different names in the same HydraFax shared gateway directory, and create more than one PMail gateway under different names. In this way you could send faxes with different headers, should you choose to do so, just by using a different gateway name (example: FAX, FAX2, FAX3.) The changes required to the gateways are the "Gateway Name" and the fax header filename located in the "Run for outgoing mail".

PConfig Set-up

To be able to send faxes from Pegasus using PMFax, a UDG (user defined gateway) must be defined. This is accomplished using a program that comes bundled with the Pegasus distribution, called PCONFIG.EXE.

PConfig must be run from the directory that you are starting Pegasus from. It updates the file "PMGATE.SYS" that Pegasus reads during program initialisation, as well as the Bindery. This file contains the gateway information. Pegasus must be restarted each time a change is made using PConfig.

In a network situation, if all Pegasus users are not sharing the PMAIL directory on a common drive, the PConfig program must be run on all machines that require the fax gateway. It may be necessary to have LAN administrative rights to do this, or you may need to add the switch "/s" after the PCONFIG.EXE if Pegasus is running in a standalone mode.

Using the Pegasus Mail PConfig program, written by Pegasus creator, David Harris, create a user defined gateway called FAX (or some other name you may prefer.)

Set the prompts to the following values.

Gateway name: FAX
The name you select for the gateway.

New mail path:
Leave blank.

Is ^ a program to run? : N

New mail search mask:
Leave blank.

Outgoing mail path:
Enter the path to the HydraFax shared directory.

Run for outgoing mail: X:\PATH\PMFAX ~c ~h ~a\FAXHEAD.PRN
This field requires four values.

The path and file name where PMFAX.EXE is located. Normally in your PMAIL directory.
The two characters "~c", do not include the quote marks. This represents the PMail gateway generated file path and name.
"~h" is the location of the user’s home mail box.
The file name (path specified by "~a" which represents the base PMAIL directory) of the graphic header file created in your word processor, and saved using a HP LaserJet Plus driver.

Filename format: ~d~d.FAX
This will generate a random eight character named file with the extension ".FAX". The extension name "FAX" is irrelevant, you could leave it as ".CNM" as is the default.

Run to validate address:
Leave blank.

Reply address format: ~p
This will place the users Personal Name, that is set in the Pegasus program, in the "From" field.

Accepts SMTP Addresses? : N

Simple message headers? : Simple headers

UUEncode attachments? : N

Burst messages: Y

Gateway process BCC? : N

Strip gateway name? : Y

Force all mail through? : N

The following is an example screen of Pconfig, based on the settings shown above:

Sample PConfig Screen