>>>I've got a client who has a business that receives work orders via fax. Currently that ties up two fax machines. I was wondering if the fax automation software would allow you to pull the faxes in and save the text via ocr to a text file so I could parse it. Is this doable?
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>>It's doable. The big issue is the quality of the fax received and the quality of the OCR software. Hand written faxes, poor transmissions, and unwillingness to spend on an industrial grade OCR solution can be big hurdles.
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>>Castelle makes the FaxPress server which can hook up to a PBX (or a straight copper line), and the network to receive faxes (and send as well). Documents are saved as TIF files which work pretty well for OCR. You can route faxes by email as well.
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>I was thinking it was doable. I've been looking at the winfax software. I guess it has an ocx I can use. I'm thinking of setting up a pc with outlook for emailed stuff and use bindevents to intercept the emails and distribute. I've already written that code, just waiting on the other pieces.

I don't know what it is like now, but WinFax use to drive us crazy in ISP tech support. It commandeered the com port and would not let go. Memory leaks worse than NT4. People using the web would lose all DNS functions after a few minutes. PC's would crawl slower than a slug on a bed of salt. I've stayed away since then.