Bluetooth Faxing with 10.5

[MadDogMike]

I saw this article that one can fax with a mobile phone via bluetooth in 10.4:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22982?viewlocale=en_US

Pretty cool, except I have 10.5 and the directions don't work in 10.5. (There's no "advanced" selection when you option-click "More Printers".)

I do see that 10.5 has a utility to add a bluetooth fax, which I went through, but couldn't get to work. (At no point did it ask to connect with my bluetooth phone.)

Anybody know how to get this to work? Sure would be a great feature when on the road!

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

From the first two paragraphs of the article in the link:

but not all wireless carriers and phones support faxing

Note: Faxing must be supported by the phone and wireless carrier, too, for this to work.

Are you certain your phone and your carrier supports bluetooth faxing?

 

[MadDogMike]

Are you certain your phone and your carrier supports bluetooth faxing?

Yeah, pretty sure. I used to fax with this phone and carrier via tethering way back. I'm just looking for the proper instructions for 10.5. I'm pretty sure I'm missing some of the steps, because at no point does the Mac ask to link up with the phone.

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

You probably already did this .. but just to cover the bases - have you paired the phone with the mac already?

 

[MadDogMike]

You probably already did this .. but just to cover the bases - have you paired the phone with the mac already?

Well, good question. I have it setup so I can send files between the phone and the Mac. If you click the bluetooth icon on the Mac my phone is one of the listed devices. However, I would think there is more setting up to do than that for faxing.

I go to System Preferences --> Print & Fax --> then click "+", then click the Fax icon. In the Printer Name list there's already a item labeled "Bluetooth" with "Kind" being "Fax." But then I click "Add" and it acts like it's done. It never asks to pair with my phone.

How would it know what device I want to use? It never asks me what phone I want to use or asks me to pair that phone. I can't imagine it would just "assume" it's the phone I setup for file transfers. What if I wanted to use a different phone? This is why I think I'm missing some steps. At some point the fax setup should ask me to pair up the phone, but it never does.

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

So,have you tried to fax something to the bluetooth fax device you just setup? Perhaps it just grabbed the only bluetooth device you had configured and ran with it. It's worth a whirl...

By the way, pairing is only done once when you first set up a device. You have already done this since you are setup to do file xfers - so it would not ask to pair again.

 

[MadDogMike]

So,have you tried to fax something to the bluetooth fax device you just setup? Perhaps it just grabbed the only bluetooth device you had configured and ran with it. It's worth a whirl...

By the way, pairing is only done once when you first set up a device. You have already done this since you are setup to do file xfers - so it would not ask to pair again.

Well, you're right! I tried to print to fax and I see the bluetooth come alive on my phone, indicating it's communicating with the Mac. Still can't send, though. I remember when I faxed tethered before there were some modems strings or something that had to be sent with the fax. I see there's a spot for dialing prefix, I guess I have to find out what that is for my carrier.

thanks,
mike