Answer

Cover pages are used to describe the fax that is being sent which usually include information on the sender, recipient and the text used in the fax email message. Whenever a user writes a message in the fax email message form or Microsoft Outlook, GFI FaxMaker will format the message body on to the cover page.

GFI FaxMaker offers a number of cover pages; however, you can also create your own custom cover pages to include a particular layout and even your company logo. This article provides guidelines on how to do this.

• The cover page needs to be created in HTML format
• Cover pages should be stored in <\GFI\FaxMaker\coverpge> directory
• As mentioned above, a number of example cover pages are included with GFI FaxMaker. You can find these in the <\GFI\FaxMaker\coverpge> directory. Use these to get a better understanding of how a cover page is composed
• All the merge-fields which can be used in GFI FaxMaker can be found in the GFI FaxMaker manual (Section Configuring Cover pages > Supported merge-fields)
• If a particular merge-field is not working correctly in a newly created Cover page, it is recommended to test using the Cover page fields.htm. Fields.htm is a pre defined Cover page located in <\GFI\FaxMaker\coverpge> which contains all the merge-fields in one single Cover page. This will give you a good indication if you are encountering an issue related to the newly created Cover page or the content that is being sent out with the fax.
• The images used in the coverpage should be monochrome. Remember that when these are faxed, the image received on by the recipient is shown in monochrome. Color images may not show correctly when sent as a fax.
• The message body which is included in the email will be placed in the [message] merge-field.
• The merge fields should all be written in lower case in the coverpage
• Ideally, the coverpage is created using a text editor. This will ensure that no extra HTML tags are inserted in the cover page which would make the cover page bulky, and may not be interpreted correctly by GFI FaxMaker.
• The information of the sender is retrieved either from Active Directory, or from the Licensed Users node of the GFI FaxMaker Configuration
• The information of the recipient is retrieved as follows:
  • When the fax is sent from the GFI FaxMaker client, the GFI FaxMaker client will send all the recipient information that it manages to collect from its address book or from the Outlook address book
  • GFI FaxMaker can be configured to retrieve information from a Public Contacts folder.  In this case, GFI FaxMaker will lookup the contact information in the Public Contacts folder, and will insert this information in the coverpage
  • When the fax is sent from Microsoft Outlook to an Outlook contact, Microsoft Outlook will include basic information on the contact such as name, surname, fax number and company name. Microsoft Outlook does not include the department
  • When the fax is sent from Microsoft Outlook using one off faxing, only the information included for the recipient will be inserted in the coverpage
• The merge-fields which do not get populated will remain empty

Note

Adding a merge-field does not mean that GFI FaxMaker is able to retrieve the information for the merge-field.  For example, if you add the department of the recipient, and this information is not included in the fax, the department is not included in the contact, GFI FaxMaker will leave the field empty.  The same applies when using Microsoft Exchange Public Global Contacts and the contact does not have the department information stored in the contact.

Related Articles:

• How is sender and recipient information in the coverpage retrieved?