Utilizing a facsimile service for sending e-mail

摘要

A method and a server for utilizing a facsimile service for sending e-mail. The method for sending a facsimile message to an e-mail address includes the steps of a sender appending the telephone facsimile number associated with the addressee to the facsimile message being sent to the addressee (204) and sending the facsimile message to a pre-allocated service number associated with a dedicated server (206). The server converts the facsimile message to a Tagged Image File (TIF) (208); using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to recognize and abstract the telephone facsimile number of the addressee from the TIF file (214); retrieves the e-mail address associated with the telephone facsimile number of the addressee (216), and sends an e-mail formatted message containing the facsimile message via the Internet to the addressee's associated e-mail address (220).