Something to fax, print letters & Email

[BigZilla]

I’ve seen some good individual solutions for faxing and emailing and Mail merge. But has anyone seen one that does all three? I don’t need something that is industrial strength, just something that will let me send some emails, faxes and letters on occasion.

Do you guys know of anything like this? Something I could add to my own solution would really be great! Just thought I’d ask if you know of anything before setting off on my own.

Thanks for your help,

Bill

[John Nolan]

Have a look at PageSender:

http://www.smileonmymac.com/pagesender/index.html

They include some FileMaker examples.

Edited September 7, 2006 by Guest

[BigZilla]

Hi John,

Thanks for the web site. I checked it out and it seems more for faxing. Although it does have a product for letters as well. If they have something for emails I didn't see it.

I was hoping there is an all in one solution available. I'm a little surprised because most companies send a letters, faxes and emails.

Am I right that FileMaker has the internal ability to fax and email natively? I think I saw something using either Shell or ZippScript plug-in; I’m not sure which. Maybe someone has something in that direction.

I hope someone will read this thread and go "Oh yah, I know where to get that"! Hey, a man can dream!

Thanks again John,

Bill

Edited September 7, 2006 by Guest

[T-Square]

I'm not sure what your issue with letters is, to be honest. Creating and sending a letter essentially requires human intervention (e.g., printing, signing, folding, and posting). FM includes the ability to print out layouts, so if you create a letter layout, you can print that, sign it, fold it and mail it just fine. (If you're wondering how to set up customizable letters, consider creating a "Correspondence" table that includes the letter text (along with other parts of the letter), which can then be merged with client data for a flexible correspondence module).

WRT to faxing and emailing, the catch word in your post is "natively". FM includes a script step to send email, but that uses the operating system's default mail client (Apple Mail, Entourage, or MS Outlook) to send messages. This has its shortcomings, but can serve to send a limited number of emails. There are discussions on ways to accomplish this.

Similarly, you can make use of your operating system's capabilities to set up a "printer" that is your fax-modem (in Windows, at least, I haven't looked closely at the Mac world). Then, when you print a letter, you simply tell FM to use the Fax printer driver to get it on the way.

If you are trying to build a package that is more industrial, you will probably want to check out plug ins (for email, SMTPIt gets high ratings).

David