Award Winning Fax Software since 1999

Question:	How can I move my snappy fax data to my new computer ?
Answer:	There are actually two ways to do this. The easiest way is to use the 'Utilities \| Backup or Restore' menu item to create a backup set. Create the backup set on a removal or network drive that may be access by the new computer. Once you have downloaded snappy fax and installed it on the new computer, use the 'Utilities \| Backup or Restore' menu item and from the restore screen, select the 'Restore from zip' tab page. Select the backup set that you created from the old computer to restore the data to your new computer. The other, more cumbersome, method... Use 'Help \| Technical Support' on the menu to determine where your data is located - look for 'Data path' near the top of the tech data. This is the folder where snappy fax's data files are located. Copy all files in that folder to a removeable drive or a network drive that can be accessed by the new computer. Once you have installed snappy fax on the new computer, look at the tech data there and find your 'data path'. Copy the files you saved from the old copy to that folder on the new computer.
Question:	Will Call Waiting effect my transmissions on outgoing faxes ?
Answer:	It is easy to understand that call waiting will interrupt incoming fax transmissions. But strangely, it will also interrupt outgoing fax transmissions as well. If you are sending a fax and an incoming call occurs on your phone line, the call waiting signal will effect the transmission of HDLC frames to the remote causing the remote receiver to fail and subsequently your sending session will fail with 'Fatal timeout'. If you have call waiting on your line, use the 'dial out prefix' option to enter the disable code to disable call waiting during the call while the transmission is in progress. A common disable code is 70 but you should check with your phone provider to verify the correct disable code for call waiting. Place a comma after the disable code in the dial out prefix option to cause a pause while the stutter tone plays after the code is sent. If you use a dial out prefix of 70, and you are sending to fax number 800-555-5555, the following dialing sequence will occur... 1. *70 to disable call waiting 2. pause 2 seconds (the comma causes this to happen) 3. then the fax number of 800-555-5555 will be dialed by the modem. Note: It is not possible to disable call waiting for a receiving session by sending a disable code to the modem.
Question:	How can I move Snappy fax to a new computer ?
Answer:	The easiest way to move snappy fax is to use the 'Utilities \| Backup or Restore data' menu option to create a backup set from your original snappy fax on the computer you are moving from. Once you have downloaded snappy fax from our website and installed on your new computer, you can use 'Utilities \| Backup or Restore data' menu option in the new copy of snappy fax and use the 'Restore from zip' to restore the data to snappy fax's data folder on the new computer. Note: you may need to copy the sfbackupset.zip file created during the original backup to a removeable drive or other removeable media and then copy to the new computer's hard drive.
Question:	I'm having a problem running snappy fax with Windows Media Center, why ?
Answer:	If your are running Windows Media Center Edition, you may find that snappy fax cannot detect or use your modem. To remedy the problem: Start Media Center Click Settings Click Messenger and Caller ID Where it shows "Show notification for..." highlight the radio button "none" Click Save Exit Media Center This will free up the modem so that snappy fax can use it. Only one application can have access to the modem's com port at one time, if media center is set to show caller id information it will be accessing the com port and snappy fax will not have access to it.
Question:	Does Snappy Fax work with network scanners ?
Answer:	We have successfully tested snappy fax with RemoteScan using a local scanner connected to another machine on the network. RemoteScan can turn any scanner into a network scanner. It is easy to install and quite affordable. Visit their website for more information. Visit their contacts page and request an evaluation version before purchasing to ensure compatibility with your scanner. We have not tested snappy fax with network scanners, as they are quite expensive, but network scanners that support the twain standard should work fine with snappy fax.
Question:	Snappy Fax cannot install the fax driver, why ?
Answer:	The most likely cause is that a Local Security Policy is enabled on your computer that prevents installing the driver. First try 'Utilities \| Install/Upgrade driver' from the snappy fax menu. If that install fails: Try either or both of these two steps: Step 1 Go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Local Security Policy In the left pane, click on 'Local Policies \| Security Options'. In the right pane, find 'Devices: prevent users from installing printer drivers'. Right click on that and select 'Properties' and make sure 'Disabled' is checked. If that doesn't work... Step 2 1. Click Start and then Run 2. Write gpedit.msc and press ENTER 3. Navigate to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Printers and change Disallow installation of printers using kernel-mode drivers to Disable it
Question:	What modems are support and/or recommended ?
Answer:	The only modems that are known not to work with our fax software are Motorola modems. There is a serious flaw in the motorola modem driver and it is officially not supported here. Aside from Motorola modems, any good quality fax modem should be fine but there are a few things that must be considered when discussing modems... The cheap winmodems or software modems that crowd the retail shelves can be troublesome. These modems do not have their own on-board controller and must "steal" processing cycles from the computer's cpu to do the controller's job. These modems will prove unreliable over time. In addition, if you are using our fax server software with more than one modem installed, know that windows will not tolerate multiple winmodems and you are headed for heartache if you attempt to use multiple winmodems or software modems. Good quality controller based modems are a must if you want reliability, no software can compensate for a modem that will not perform its job adequately. All external modems are controller based with the exception of some USB modems so be careful when considering a USB modem, it may be a winmodem. Avoid US Robotics modems like the plague, their fax implementation is flawed. We have many users using USR modems with no problem but we also have a lot of tech problems with them as well, so it is best to avoid these modems, they are over-priced as well. Multi-tech has a good reputation as a quality modem manufacturer. Winmodems to avoid: 1. PcTel (HSP and micromodem) - poor quality 2. Agere systems - worst quality 3. Smartlink modems - do not support the E0 command, this is a standard modem command but not supported by these modems.
Question:	How can I get rid of the Outlook prompt before forwarding a fax to email ?
Answer:	Here's how... Go to settings->fax options and UNCHECK the 'Always Use Default mailer...' option. OK out of settings and then click the 'Manager your email accounts' button on the main toolbar. Set up a default email account, make sure that you fill in all fields and mark 'Use as default account'. Refer to your normal email program's settings to make sure your entries are correct. Once this account is setup, snappy fax will use it to send all faxes by email or forward them, bypassing your regular mailer and its prompt.
Question:	How can I overlay an image of my signature on a document ?
Answer:	You can use the rubber stamp annotation tool to do this. This tool is very tricky so follow these steps exactly. With your document in the snappy fax viewer, click the rubber stamp annotation tool button. Click the spot on the document where you want to place the signature From the ensuing rubber stamp dialog, click the "Create Image" button Click the "Browse" button to navigate to and select your the image file, be sure to enter a stamp name like "MySignature" Once you have selected the image file and given the stamp a name and that dialog closes, you must select that stamp name from the list on the left, it will not be automatically selected for you. Click OK and the image will be placed on the document for you. Now that you have created a stamp, you can use this stamp in the future by selecting it from the rubber stamp dialog The signature will not appear on a faxed or printed image unless you "burn-in" your annotations. There is a tool bar button around the image area to use for this. Note: The rubber stamp dialog will not close unless a stamp has been selected. If this dialog is open and there are no existing stamps then you must create one and then select it to close the dialog. In the event you have changed your mind during the process and really do not want a stamp on the image then you must complete this process and then delete the rubber stamp annotation from the image by clicking it and then pressing the delete key. This tool is part of a third-party sdk, we would certainly change it if we could.
Question:	How can multiple snappy fax users share the same address book on a network ?
Answer:	Snappy fax has the ability to manage multiple address books and to use shared address books located on a shared network drive. Here's how to set up a shared address book or add additional address books... Click the 'manage your address book' button on the main window's toolbar. From the address book maintenance screen, click the 'Add Address book...' link. There are two radio buttons on the ensuing screen - Create a New Address Book and Locate an existing address book and add it to my list of known address books. If you want to create a new address book select that radio button and give the address book a name in the edit box provided, for example 'Shared'. Click the 'Browse...' button to select the folder where you want to keep this new address book, this folder can be a shared network folder. Click the 'Create now' button. You will be asked if you want to copy your current default address book to the new address book location. If you want the new book to be empty, click no, otherwise your address book entries will be added to the newly created address book. If other snappy fax clients want to use this address book as well, they can perform this exact procedure EXCEPT they will select the 'Locate an existing address book' radio button, give the address book a name and use the 'Browse...' button to navigate to the location of the new address book and then click the 'Add Now' button to add it to the list of known address books. When back at the address book maintenance screen, you can select the new address book from the drop down list of "known" address books and select the 'Set as the Default Address book' checkbox to make the shared address book the default address book. The default address book will be the one from which entries will be displayed on the Select Recipients screen at fax time.
Question:	I am getting occassional bug reports indicating 'Access denied to table...', what causes this ?
Answer:	This is a permissons problem, please read this explanation for possible solutions..
Question:	I have snappy fax in receive mode but my modem will not answer the call, why ?
Answer:	Quite possibly you have too many devices attached to your incoming phone line. Each device (modem, answering machine, etc) has a REN (Ringer Equivalence Number) that is used to determine the quantity of devices which may be connected to the telephone line. In the US, the total REN on most lines is 5.0, and most modems take between 0.4 and 1.0. When the total REN on the line gets up in the 3.5 range, the total line quality starts to suffer and it is possible that the modem does not even "hear" the call. If none of this seems to apply then you most likely have a cheap, poor quality winmodem. In this case, replace the modem with a good quality non-US Robotics controller based modem.
Question:	How can I improve the reliability of fax sessions ?
Answer:	If you are plagued by 'fatal timeout' error results or others, try the following: DISABLE YOUR SCREENSAVER ! Some screensavers can be quite cpu intensive and will starve the communication threads from receiving required messages. Avoid running other cpu intensive processes while fax sessions are in progress, they will likely starve the communication threads. Make sure that you have the most up to date modem drivers from the manufacturer. Note that a new out-of-the-box modem may not have the latest driver, check the manufacturer's website. Make sure FIFO buffers are enabled for your modem - Here's how: Go to Control Panel->Modems and highlight your modem in the modem list. Click the 'Properties' button. Click the 'Advanced' tab page and then click the 'Advanced Port Settings...' button. You will see the checkbox to ensure FIFO buffers are enabled. It might also be helpful to increase the buffer sizes. Try different modem baud rates (in snappy fax settings) in this order: 9600, 12000 and 14400. Try changing the fax class from 'Class1' to 'Detect'. Note: Class1 is usually the best setting. Remove as many splitters, Y-adapters as possible. Make sure the phone cord from the modem is plugged DIRECTLY into the wall jack and use a cord that is no long than 15ft.
Question:	My phone is not ringing but I'm getting repeated 'fatal time outs' in my receive fax listing, why ?
Answer:	This is a classic symptom of a defective modem or modem driver, chances are you'll need to replace the modem. Note: If you have an Agere modem, it has a fatally flawed driver.
Question:	I have DSL and I cannot get snappy fax to work, what do I need to do ?
Answer:	Most likely you do not have your dsl / fax modem connections configured correctly. You can verify this by unchecking the 'Blind dial' modem option in snappy fax and then try to send a fax. If the result is 'no dial tone' then this will confirm that the modem is not connect to the phone line. You dsl line comes through a wall jack with a wire to a splitter. From the splitter there are two wires, one to the dsl modem and one to the telephone set. You need to reroute the wire that goes from the splitter to the phone set so that it goes from the splitter to the fax modem's 'line' jack. Run an additional piece of standard telephone wire from the modem's 'phone' jack to the telephone set and you are done. Click here to see a diagram of the correct connection setup.
Question:	My Snappy fax driver has quit working ! What's wrong ?
Answer:	Build 3.45.2.2 and higher make this answer obsolete as the driver replacement procedure is performed by snappy fax automatically. We recently changed the driver so as to be compatible with Windows Terminal server sessions. You will need to remove the old driver so snappy fax can install the new driver. Apologies, however there really isn't a good way to do this internally without user intervention. Click here for a full explanation on how to remove the old driver.
Question:	How can I display the address book alphabetical order ?
Answer:	This answer applies to every screen in snappy fax. You can sort any grid display by a column by clicking on the column header. It is a toggle sort, ie you click it once it sorts it ascending, click it again and it reverses the sort order. Most grids can be multi-sorted by multiple columns by clicking on the first column, holding down the shift key and clicking on the next column.
Question:	When I use the "Application Files" button, I get an error "..., A device on the system is not functioning". What the heck does that mean ?
Answer:	The "Application Files" button was designed to function like the Word and Excel buttons; to automically generate a faxable image for a document file, a document associated with another application (Wordperfect perhaps, or any other application). The error "A Device on the system is not functioning properly" is a windows error message that snappy fax displays when it attempts to 'execute' the file selected by using the "Application Files" button. The error means that either there is no application associated with the file type of the file you chose OR the application associated with it does not support the 'printto' command line directive. Without getting technical about what that means, suffice it to say there is no way for snappy fax to process that file type automatically so you will have to open that application directly to print the fax to snappy's fax driver.
Question:	When I scan with snappy fax the image looks fine in the image viewer but the recipient of my fax says the quality is very poor, why ?
Answer:	If you scan with a scanner setting other than black and white your images will not convert very well to fax format which is monochrome (2 colors, black and white). The image viewer is capable of handling a variety of image formats and just because the image looks fine there doesn't mean it will render well for faxing. Be aware that your scanner's driver settings dialog (called the UI) may not show a "black and white" setting, they may call it "line art", "text as image" or something else but they all have a black and white setting. Why they chose not to use the obvious term "black and white" is a mystery. If your scanner has a setting with the word "fax" in it do not assume that is the correct setting since on some scanners it produces a grayscale image that will look terrible when converted to monochrome. When a document is converted to fax format, every pixel that is not exactly white will become exactly black. That means that pixels that are a very light shade of gray will become black. These pixels are hardly noticeable to the human eye when looking at the image but they exist and will cause the image to be very dark or "dusty" when faxed to your recipient. If your recipient is complaining about dark images and they look fine to you in the viewer then you must trust snappy fax on this one, you are using the wrong scanner setting. We have had dozens of tech support situations where the user swore he was using the black and white setting only to find out it was a 256 color grayscale image, once we could convince them to send the image to us.
Question:	I cannot receive faxes with snappy fax, what is the problem ?
Answer:	The most common problem we encounter is that the user has not put snappy fax in receive mode. There is a button on the toolbar, the button's hint is "Monitor incoming calls". This button is a toggle button, when clicked it will start the modem monitoring incoming calls and stay in the "down" position. When the button is clicked again, call monitoring will be terminated and the button will return to the "up" position, indicating that call monitoring is off. This button is disabled if "Advanced Call Handling" has been selected as an option. If you have enabled Advanced Call Handling and your modem will not pick up the incoming call then make sure that you have not selected "Ignore call" as the desired action for ACH when it detects an incoming call. If ACH is enabled and your modem does not detect or answer an incoming call, then disable ACH and use the toolbar button described in the preceding paragraph. Some modems just will not work properly with Advanced Call Handling. If you have ACH enabled and selected "Answer" as the desired action when a call is detected, you are adding a layer (Tapi) to the process and will be better off disabling ACH and using the button described above to start the receiving mode. ACH uses Tapi (an operating system service) which just adds additional complexity to call answering. If your modem works properly with ACH, then you do not need to do anything to start ACH monitoring incoming calls, it happens automatically when you start snappy fax. The advantage of ACH is that you can use the modem for other purposes (like internet access) without having to shutdown ACH. This doesn't mean you can receive a fax while you are connected to the internet with your modem. If you do not use dialup networking (modem access) to the internet, there is little advantage to using ACH unless you want it to prompt you before it answers a call.
Question:	Can you explain where the fax server data files are and how I access them from the client ?
Answer:	We've made a special page for this explanation, click here
Question:	Snappy Fax says it cannot install it's fax/printer driver, what do I do now ?
Answer:	This rarely happens but when it does, you can install the driver manually. Click here for instructions.
Question:	Snappy Fax says it cannot access the modem's com port, what is wrong ?
Answer:	Only one program or process can use the com port at a time. If you use your modem for dialup access to the internet then you must shutdown your internet connection in order to use the modem for sending or receiving faxes. If you determine that is not the problem then another program or process is using the com port. A likely culprit is the Microsoft Fax Console. You will need to disable the Microsoft Fax Console from receiving faxes so that other programs (namely snappy fax) can gain access to the port. To see how to disable Fax Console receiving click here. If the Fax Console is not the culprit then you will need to shutdown other process one at a time to determine which one has the com port open. Right click on the system tray icons and shut each one down until you can access the com port, one of those processes is probably responsible for the problem.
Question:	I just switched to DSL and now Snappy Fax will not recognize my DSL modem. How do I send and receive faxes using my new DSL modem ?
Answer:	You can't. DSL and Cable modems are not fax capable. They do not contain the circuitry necessary for communicating with fax machines. You will still need your regular fax modem to send and receive faxes. The fax modem will not conflict in any way with your broadband modem and both can coexist happily in your computer. If you have DSL from your phone company then you can plug your modem and a telephone set into the DSL by means of a splitter. You can find them at any electronics store, they are very inexpensive.
Question:	How can I fax more than one Word Document to the same recipient(s) in one fax transmission ?
Answer:	It is by no means obvious but here's how you can do it: Version 3.39.1.1 or higher makes this answer obsolete, we have added a new "capture mode" that will make this easy as... a snap ! If you don't have build 3.39.1.1 or higher, get it now ! See the Q & A on Capture Mode Print your first document from Word to the Snappy Fax driver as you normally would. When the Snappy Fax "Select Recipients" screen appears, select "Capture Only" as the fax routing method. When this routing method is selected, Snappy Fax will merely save the image and the entry will show in the Sent Faxes view as "Saved Image". Repeat this process for each additional Word document. When finished, you will see all documents listed sequentially in the sent fax view indicated as "Saved Image". You can then select all images with the mouse, right-click on the selections and select "View, Print, Save or Chain Images"->"Chain Selected Faxes Together" from the pop up menu. This will chain all the document images together and load the resulting multi-page document into the image viewer. You can then click the "Fax the active image" button on the toolbar to fax it.
Question:	Where are my snappy fax data files located ?
Answer:	Snappy Fax attempts to create a folder keep fax data separate for each user on your computer. The folder is: c:\documents and settings\YOURUSERNAME\application data\snappy fax 2000\data On some computers this style folder cannot be created, usually older versions of windows that have not been updated or computers that have a problem with their windows installation. In that case, the files will be stored in c:\program files\snappy fax 2000 version 3\data You can view the tech data by selecting Help \| Technical Support on the menu to see the location of the data files on your system.
Question:	Does Snappy Fax support Distinctive Ring ?
Answer:	No. In earlier versions we did support DR. There are two methods that modems can use to report distinctive ring signals so that software can distinguish a certain ring pattern. One method is reliable, the other is not. Unfortunately, most modem manufacturers have chosen to use the unreliable method. That method is not true distinctive ring detection but merely a method of ring cadence reporting that is unreliable from one system to another. For this reason, we chose to abandon DR support.
Question:	My modem is a 56k modem, why can't I send faxes at that speed ?
Answer:	The modem's rated speed (56k for example) does not apply to fax transmissions. Modems can send fax data at a maximum rate of 14,400 bps. Much of the negotiation phase between your modem and the remote fax occur at speeds as low as 300 bps, this is governed by the Group3 fax specifications. Even if you have your baud rate options set at 14,400, the remote fax may negotiate a different transmission rate for the session because of line noise or it may not support that speed. Transmission speeds of 9600 are very common with many fax machines, so regardless of your baud rate settings you may experience most sessions transmitting at 9600 bps. At 9600 bps most faxes will take approximately one minute per page.
Question:	What is "Capture Mode" and how do I use it ?
Answer:	Capture Mode can be used when you want to send multiple documents created from different applications in one fax transmission as a multi-page document. For example, say you want to send a three page Word document and a four page Excel speadsheet along with a two page QuickBooks report in one fax transmission. Here's how you do it: Start Capture mode by clicking the "Capture Mode" button on the snappy fax main toolbar. Note: you can also right click on the tray icon and select "Capture Mode" from the menu or press the Capture Mode hot key (the default is Ctrl+Shift+C). Go to Word and print your document to the snappy fax printer driver. You will hear an audible click and see a brief progress bar screen to let you know snappy fax is capturing the document. Repeat the printing for the Excel spreadsheet and QuickBooks report Stop Capture mode by once again clicking the Capture mode button, using the tray icon's menu item or pressing the Capture mode hot key combination. When Capture mode is stopped, snappy fax will paste the captured images into one multi-page document and load it into the image viewer and make its main window visible. You are now ready to fax the document if you wish or you can annotate, save the image to a file or whatever you need to do the the multi-page document. Note: You can select "Settings \| Capture Mode Hot Key" from the main menu to redefine the Capture Mode hot key, if necessary.