Compatibility Statement Calculus EZ-FAX v3.52 is compatible with LANtastic NOS version 4.xx. Product Overview The EZ-FAX product (advanced system) consists of an 8-bit ISA fax board and the accompanying software for: Sending Faxes: EZ-FAX supports sending plain text files and HP LaserJet formatted files (by first converting them into an EZ-FAX format). You can also scan and store hardcopy documents into EZ-FAX to be faxed later. You have the option of specifying the number of retries and scheduling a fax to go out at a later time. By a concept known as "virtual printer device", EZ-FAX can emulate a printer to capture print streams produced by an application and send the output as faxes. Receiving Faxes: EZ-FAX is capable of receiving in-coming faxes. You can then 'edit' the fax using a graphics editor, e.g. PC Paintbrush or Dr. Halo. Calculus has provided several conversion utilities to convert fax images (in G3F Group 3 Fax format) to a format that can be fed into the graphics editor. In addition, EZ-FAX allows you to view a fax on your terminal if you have a graphics adapter. Monitoring activities: EZ-FAX provides a console utility (the ezf menu) to help you check for fax errors, maintain a phone directory, etc. A separate utility called ezfmodem is also provided which allows you to share the telephone line between EZ-FAX and an internal or external data modem or a telephone set. Product Installation Notes The first step in setting up your EZ-FAX system is to complete the hardware installation on the PC acting as the fax server. You will need to pay attention to these items: * The EZ-FAX card with its high bandwidth coprocessor chip. * A dedicated single-line telephone line to be connected to the EZ-FAX card. * (optional) Scanners, which can be installed on the fax server or a workstation. * Printers. EZ-FAX recognizes 4 types of printers: - Network Spooled Printer: any printer on the network ( e.g. \\\@printer ). You need to specify to EZ-FAX which printers on the network it can use from the Change Options/Network Printers screen within their INSTALL utility. The network printers are then referred by EZ-FAX as NSPOOL0, NSPOOL1, etc. 2 modes of printing faxes on a network printer are supported by EZ-FAX, and are documented in Appendix A Network Printing in the EZ-FAX LAN Installation Guide: Direct Network Printing (corresponds to the Network Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User Options): Do not redirect that port at the network level (i.e. that port cannot be used by other applications on the fax server). Let the EZ-FAX Spooler talk directly to \\\@printer, or NSPOOLn. Captured Fax Server Printing (corresponds to the Spooled Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User Options ): Need to redirect at the network level. - Fax Server Spooled Printer (also corresponds to the Spooled Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User Options if the printer is connected as a local printer to the fax server): one of the printers installed on the fax server may be designated as the fax server spooled printer, referred by EZ-FAX as SPOOL. The EZ-FAX print spooler manages this printer. - Local Spooled Printer: A printer on a workstation can be configured as a Local Spooled Printer using the DOS PRINT command. This printer is referred to by EZ-FAX as LSPOOL. On LANtastic, since local spooling is disabled once network despooling is enabled, this option is not available. - Local printer: you can refer to the local printers on a workstation within EZ-FAX by their usual names, e.g. LPT1, LPT2, etc. To use a printer belonging to any of these types within EZ-FAX, you need to first set it up as a logical printer through the Change Options /Printers screen in the INSTALL utility. * Expanded memory managers: EZ-FAX only runs in expanded, not extended memory. See Memory Requirements section below for more details. The key is to fit all these together. You need to: * Avoid conflicts in the hardware settings for the network adapter, the scanner and the memory manager hardware (if applicable). The I/O address and interrupt level of the EZ-FAX card will be configured automatically according to the parameters you specify from INSTALL during the software installation. * Configure all the devices properly in your config.sys. During the EZ-FAX software installation, you need to enter the configurations of all of the above mentioned devices into the system. Then, your config.sys and autoexec.bat in the root directory of your boot drive will be changed accordingly. As a result, config.sys may contain the following lines: FILES=35 BUFFERS=20 DEVICE=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram x=d000-d800 /* for the memory manager */ DEVICE=c:\ezf\sjdriver.sys /* for the scanners */ If you are using a network adapter that uses RAMBASE (e.g. Artisoft 2Mbps or some non-Artisoft adapters with LANtastic/AI), do not forget to exclude the RAMBASE address used by the adapter on the DEVICE line for the memory manager in config.sys. Details about how to set up the directories and user access for using EZ-FAX on a LANtastic network are described in Chapter 4 of the EZ-FAX LAN Installation Guide. Each workstation on the network can then share these facilities for faxing by logging onto the server and putting the EZ-FAX directory in its DOS path. In addition, these 3 variables need to be set in your DOS environment: SET EZFPATH= SET EZFCPATH= SET EZFDPATH= Memory Requirements Before you can use EZ-FAX, you need to load several TSR (terminate, stay resident) programs: On the fax server: ezfbs.exe - requires 166K of conventional memory. (or 34K + 10 EMS pages) On each workstation to provide virtual printer device (optional): ezfbw.exe - requires 83K of conventional memory (or 7K + 6 EMS pages) In addition, the ezf menu requires 160K of conventional memory, while displaying faxes from within ezf needs 90K more. Automatic use of expanded memory is provided as an install option. You may also want to refer to chapter 5 of the EZ-FAX for Networks Addendum for more details. Printing For incoming faxes: You can print them out manually through the Received Documents option from the ezf menu onto a selected logical printer. Also, you can program EZ-FAX to automatically print incoming faxes out on a printer. Of course, you need to define the logical printers accessible to EZ-Fax first (which may belong to any of the 4 printer types described in the previous section) during installation.For outgoing faxes : A 'phantom' printer port can be established by specifying one of the 'LPTn's (usually LPT3 by default) as the Virtual Printer Device. You can then enter your application program (e.g. Wordperfect), create you fax document and then send it by 'printing' to the virtual device. The EZ-FAX User's Guide contains a whole chapter about how to use EZ-FAX with other popular applications. When using this feature, the LPTn port involved should not be redirected to any resource at the network level. Product Execution Notes The EZ-FAX product is being used in-house within Artisoft. These are a few tips we have gathered regarding the day-to-day administration of providing this facility on the network: 1. Make sure that SHARE is being loaded after REDIR and before SERVER. If SHARE is loaded before REDIR, NOS 4.0 "locks" all of the printer resources, even the ones that are not being used, thus interfering with the virtual printer device. The NOS 4.0 installation may not have set up the sequence of loading REDIR, SHARE and SERVER in this order, so you should check your autoexec.bat/startnet.bat if you get a sharing violation when printing to the virtual printer device. 2. Since the TSR consumes memory on the workstation, we recommend that you only load the TSR immediately before creating a fax, and then unload it immediately after if there is not enough memory on your workstation to keep EZFBW loaded all the time. For example, the following batch file can be used to automate this process on each workstation that uses Wordperfect with EZ-FAX: rem WP.BAT rem ==== ezfbw /* load the TSR */ wp /* invoke your application */ ezfmodem unload /* unload the TSR immediately */ 3. The time it takes to 'print' a fax is dependent on the number of pages of the fax document. 4. A problem was reported while using EZ-FAX with DesqView, a popular windowing software. Running EZ-FAX under Desqview is not recommended. 5. We've found that it does take a few seconds for ezfbs to be loaded into memory before ezfmodem can run. You may want to include these lines in the autoexec.bat file for the fax server: rem AUTOEXEC.BAT on fax server rem =============== ezfbs wait /* or other utilities to wait a few seconds */ ezfmodem srfax 6. Calculus recommends that if you have programmed EZ-FAX to automatically print out incoming faxes to a printer, you should let the EZ-FAX spooler control all regular print jobs going to that printer. Otherwise, you may risk getting incoming faxes in the middle of a regular print job if they are controlled by different spoolers. 7. A trouble-shooting tip if you notice that faxes are suddenly not going out: if the EZ-FAX server loses connection to the network printer machine, all faxes that occur after the first print job (regular or for incoming faxes) on the queue will be stacked up. You will need to bring up the printer again or delete the print job to stop it from holding up the queue. 8. Instead of using a scanner, you can use another fax machine to input documents into EZ-FAX by faxing to it. 9. EZ-FAX v3.52 advanced system supports a DOS and a Windows interface. The Windows interface has not yet been tested in-house within Artisoft. Vendor Information Calculus, Inc. 522 Mercury Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94086. Tel: (408)733-7800 Fax: (408)733-8594 ARTISOFT, Inc. makes no warranties as to the completeness or accuracy of this document. LANtastic is a trademark of ARTISOFT, Inc. Brand names, company names, and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.