How to integrate fax documents into workflows
Hard to believe, but true: fax machines are still in use in 2021.
The fax machine was introduced at CeBIT in 1990, and even 30 years later fax is still used. In that sense, it is a success story, but with clear downsides.
If teams must work with fax documents, a common problem appears: after scanning, documents are available as image files or PDF files that only contain graphics without usable text. The question is how to integrate these documents into workflows efficiently. Technical tools should reduce work, not add manual effort.
Manual transfer of fax data is expensive
Although fax usage has decreased, it became visible again during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: some health data was transmitted by fax and then manually entered into IT systems for further processing. At high volumes, this consumes significant time and capacity.
https://www.dw.com/de/gesundheits%C3%A4mter-mit-papier-stift-und-fax-gegen-corona/a-56347106
So why is fax still used?
Who still uses fax and why?
Fax is still used in some companies and regularly in public administration. Usage dropped over recent years, but some sectors still depend on it.
Reasons vary: lack of migration resources, dependencies on organizations that still require fax, and legal or data-protection concerns.
Typical fax use cases today
- Weather fax remains relevant in agriculture and shipping.
- Recalls and warnings are often faxed to supermarket branches.
- Doctors and labs exchange sensitive patient data by fax.
- Fax is still used for reservations, travel, orders, and confirmations.
- Public authorities still rely on fax in some places, especially where systems are not interoperable.
- Courts have also used fax for urgent submissions, although secure digital channels are increasing.
In general, fax persists where paper-based processes are still expected and where transmission confirmation is valued. Some also consider signed faxed documents more legally reliable.
OCR: integrate fax documents without manual retyping
Where fax documents are unavoidable, OCR helps avoid manual transfer. OCR can convert image content into editable documents. Fax images can then be transformed into searchable PDFs.
With webPDF, fax documents can be converted into PDFs containing searchable text, so relevant information no longer needs to be extracted manually.
This issue exists even when fax documents are already digital: in many cases PDF files are only wrappers for image content, and important data such as order or customer numbers must still be copied by hand.
With OCR, PDFs contain not only a visual image of the fax but also searchable content that can be found, selected, and copied. This allows faster integration into document workflows.
With webPDF you can also extract OCR text directly as XML for downstream processing. OCR can also be applied to image formats such as TIFF, JPEG, or PNG.
Using OCR with webPDF:
https://www.webpdf.de/en/pdf-ocr
More on OCR in the blog: