Send fax from PHP page form

aaron_karp

Hi, thanks for reading my post. Here's my issue:

I'm building a site for pizza restaurant that allows customers to place orders online. I could do this easily with a [FONT=courier new]mail()[/FONT] function to submit the orders, but the restaurant is not equipped well to receive email orders. However, they are equipped to receive orders by faxes.

Does anyone have any recommendations of how to send faxes via an online form? I would like the fax to contain the values of the variables "$name", "$phonenumber", as well as the items from the order.

Please help! And thanks!

Hurkle

wow, that's a tricky one.

If you control, or have access to, the computer that will host the site, you might want to think of setting it up so that when a new order is inserted into the database, it prints that order to the default printer. Have the default printer be a fax setup to use the pizza places fax number.

I don't know how to use php to send text to a printer without user interaction, but it should be doable.

Let us know what you come up with.

aaron_karp

I'm not even sure if the pizza place has a computer there, and I wouldn't have access to the server. If I used a mail() function, would I be able to convert into a fax in any way?

Hurkle

It doesn't matter if the pizza place has a computer, as you're trying to send them a fax. I'm assuming you have some method of accessing the server, at the very least you must be able to upload files to the server.. at least that's how hosting normally works..

Okay, if your goal is to have the pizza joint receive a fax, then somehow you need to have the webserver talk to a phone line in some way. Since you're not going to be hosting the site on a machine you have physical access to, setting that up yourself isn't really an option. If you aren't hosting the site, contact customer service at the company that is. Explain to them in general terms what your trying to do, and ask if they have an 'email to fax' service, or something like it.

I will tell you, the quickest and cheapest possible solution, IMHO, would be to find a cheap computer that you can setup at the pizza place. Use it to replace their existing fax machine. Their fax machine is already using a phone line, they could get a cheap switcher so that they can be on a cheap dialup, and still get faxed orders.

This would solve so many of your problems, you wouldn't need to convert the order to a fax in any way. Also most likely going to be the cheapest way to do it, as email to fax usually costs a bit of money.

bottom line, talk to the hosters cust. service peoples, and consider a cheap box onsite at the pizza joint.

best of luck

aaron_karp

Thanks. That's a good idea. I'll look into it.

teege

Hey Aaron,

I have thought of similar ideas in the past. You could try an email-to-fax solution, like this one: http://www.mi8.com/static/product_detail/C_netmoves.asp
They seem to have resonable rates. There may be others like them out there.

This way you could use mail() to email this service with the pizza place's fax number each time, with the body of your mail(the order) turning into the body of the fax they send out.

If you hapen to check out this particular site, be sure to download their PDF datasheet, it explains more than the page.

By the way Aaron, I have no ties to this company, I just happen to research this subject before.

-Teege

aaron_karp

This is so cool! Thanks!