VOCP System - Fax

VOCP System - Fax - Receive

These incoming fax files are saved in g3 format and may be viewed by converting them.

This can be done automatically from VOCPhax (/usr/local/vocp/bin/vocphax.pl) or you can convert them manually, to any supported image format.

Using VOCPhax

VOCPhax presents a friendly and intuitive graphical interface to view and send faxes. When VOCPhax is launched, it will present a preview of all the faxes found in the default incoming fax directory (/var/spool/fax/incoming/ by default). These previews are miniature versions of the g3 faxes found in the inqueue.

You can select a particular page by left clicking it once. Double-clicking a preview will open the view window, within which you can zoom in to see your fax up close. You can re-order the pages by drag & dropping them, although this is only really useful in the case of the out queue (when sending faxes).

The main window's menus are:

File->Open (open a g3 fax file)

File->Create (create a fax from a file in another format, such as jpeg, gif, xpm, ps, etc.). Useful for sending.

File->Delete to delete the page or
File->Export to export the fax to another format (simply choose a location and file name with an appropriate extension, like /path/to/blah.jpg).

File->Send Queue (send the files in the out queue)

File->Quit (not sure what this one does... ;) )

In Queue->preview (show thumbnails of the faxes in the in queue)

In Queue->Select dir (select a directory in which to look for incoming faxes)

In Queue->empty (delete all files within the queue)

Double clicking on any of the thumbnails will open a second window in which you can view the fax page at a larger scale. In this window you can drag the image around and zoom in or out. Most of the options are pretty straight forward - explore and play with it, if there's something you can't figure out, let us know.

Manual conversion

You may choose to bypass VOCPhax entirely and play with your faxes manually.

To convert the files, you can use a string of g32pbm and pbmtoXXX, or just change into the /var/spool/voice/incoming directory and run convert_fax.sh

$ cd /var/spool/voice/incoming
$ ls 
fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100.01
fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100.02
...

You can view these faxes as ppm files (converted from g3) by using /usr/local/vocp/bin/viewfax.sh or you can export the faxes to another more common format, such as jpeg, tga or xpm, using /usr/local/vocp/bin/convert_fax.sh:

$ /usr/local/vocp/bin/view_fax.sh fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100.01
$ /usr/local/vocp/bin/convert_fax.sh fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100 jpeg

The convert_fax script will take a filename or the first part of a filename (in this case the fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100 without the .01, .02) and convert all the messages to the requested format (jpeg here). The valid formats are those for which a corresponding ppmtoXXX file exists. On my system, these are:

ppmtoacad      ppmtogif       ppmtojpeg      ppmtomap
ppmtopict      ppmtopuzz      ppmtotga       ppmtoxpm
ppmtobmp       ppmtoicr       ppmtoleaf      ppmtomitsu     
ppmtopgm       ppmtopj        ppmtorgb3      ppmtouil       
ppmtoyuv       ppmtoeyuv      ppmtoilbm      ppmtolj        
ppmtompeg      ppmtopi1       ppmtopjxl      ppmtosixel     
ppmtowinicon   ppmtopcx

so the valid formats would be : gif, jpeg, map, pict, puzz, tga, etc...

You will find the converted files in the /tmp directory. You could also specify a destination directory by appending a 3rd argument:

$ /usr/local/vocp/bin/convert_fax.sh fndc6dacaS1-631-772-6100 jpeg /path/to/mydir

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