faxen

Faxen is the act of sending a document via a facsimile system. The sender places the document in a fax machine or fax-enabled device, which scans the page, encodes the image into transmittable signals, and dispatches them over a telephone or data network to a receiving fax machine that prints a copy. In German, faxen is the verb meaning to fax; the noun fax can refer to the device or to a fax message.

The technology emerged from early telegraphy and evolved into standardized facsimile formats in the late 20th century. Group 3 facsimile, widely adopted from the 1980s, uses analogue lines and image compression techniques to transmit documents efficiently. Group 4, a digital successor, supports higher compression over dedicated networks. With the rise of the internet, Fax over IP (FoIP) allows fax transmission across IP networks, often via gateways or protocols such as T.38, and many services convert faxes to PDFs for delivery by email or cloud storage.

Today, faxing remains in use in several sectors for regulatory, legal, or practical reasons, including healthcare, finance, and government. Online or cloud-based fax services have popularized turning incoming faxes into electronic documents and sending faxes from computers or mobile devices. However, the practice has declined in some regions as digital signatures, secure document portals, and email with encryption become more common. Attention to routing accuracy and privacy remains important, given the risk of misdelivery.

In German contexts, faxen is the verb; similar terms exist in other languages.