3 Fax Operations

Both mgetty and sendfax deal exclusively with raw “g3” fax files (“g3” stands for “group 3”, which is the CCITT standard for encoding images for fax transmission). You will have to use external programs to create, view or print these.

There are two kinds of g3 files, the high resolution type with 204x196 dpi and the low (“normal”) resolution ones with 204x98 dpi. If you mix up the two, the recipient will get a fax page that is either twice or half the proper length. You have been warned.

The width of a fax page is always 1728 pixels, the length is arbitrary (though there are some plain paper fax machines out there that limit the page length to A4 paper). A typical full page has a length around 2100 pixels in high-resolution mode.