How to send a fax from a computer
Yes — you can send a fax from any PC, Mac, laptop or Chromebook without a fax machine, a modem or a phone line: open helpmefax.com, upload a PDF or image, type the number, and pay $2.99 for 1–5 pages.
A delivery receipt arrives in your email when the receiving machine accepts the fax. There is no subscription, no software to install, and no contract — if you only ever need one fax, once, you pay for one fax, once.
Updated September 2026
Can I fax from my computer?
Yes. Any computer with a web browser can send a fax — a Windows PC, a Mac, a laptop, a Chromebook or a Linux desktop — because the computer never dials anything itself. You upload the file over the internet and HelpMeFax places the call to the recipient fax machine, which is why no fax modem, no phone line and no fax software is involved at any point.
Four steps, about five minutes, $2.99 for a 1–5 page fax.
Create an account
Sign up at helpmefax.com with your email address and verify it. Creating the account is free, and no card is needed until you actually send something.
Upload the document
Drag a PDF, JPG, PNG or GIF in from a folder on your computer, or click Browse and pick it. Several files become one fax, and you can add a cover page.
Type the fax number
Enter the recipient fax number and choose the destination country. The page count and the exact price are shown before you pay.
Pay and keep the receipt
Pay by card — $2.99 for a 1 to 5 page fax — and a delivery receipt arrives in your email when the receiving machine accepts the fax.
One browser tab. Nothing to install.
This is the send form inside your account, as it looks on a desktop. Drag the file in from a folder or click Browse and pick it, choose the destination country, and type the fax number. The page count and the price for it are shown before you pay.
- PDF, PNG, JPG or GIF, up to 25 MB per file. Several files become one fax.
- US and Canada at the flat domestic rate; 14 international destinations.
- A delivery receipt by email, with the record kept in your fax history.
How do I send a fax from a Windows PC?
Open helpmefax.com in Edge, Chrome or Firefox, upload your PDF or image, type the fax number and pay — Windows itself never has to be part of it.
Windows does ship a program called Windows Fax and Scan, and it is where most people get stuck. It is not an internet fax client: it drives a fax modem attached to the PC and an analog telephone line plugged into that modem. Almost no computer sold in the last decade has a modem, and almost no desk still has an analog line, so the program opens, finds no fax device, and the send goes nowhere. That is the gap the browser route fills.
Windows Fax and Scan
Built into Windows, but it needs a fax modem in the PC and an analog phone line in the modem. Without both, it cannot send anything.
HelpMeFax in a browser
Needs a browser and a file. Works the same in Edge, Chrome and Firefox, on Windows 10, Windows 11 or a work-managed laptop where you cannot install software.
How do I send a fax from a Mac?
Open helpmefax.com in Safari or Chrome, upload the PDF, type the fax number and pay — the same three steps as on a PC.
No current Mac has a modem or a phone port, so there is nothing in macOS to fax through. What macOS is very good at is producing the file: open the document in Preview, Pages or any app, choose File, then Export as PDF (or Print, then the PDF menu, then Save as PDF), and you have a clean PDF on the desktop ready to upload. Photos taken on an iPhone that land in the Photos app are easiest to handle by sending the fax from the iPhone itself.
- Preview: File, then Export as PDF. Keeps the layout exactly as you see it.
- Any app: Print, then the PDF dropdown, then Save as PDF.
- Pages or Numbers: File, then Export To, then PDF.
How do I fax a Word document?
Save it as a PDF first, then upload the PDF — .doc and .docx files are not accepted as uploads.
This is not a limitation worth fighting. A fax is a picture of a page, so what matters is that the page looks right, and a PDF is the only format that guarantees it: the fonts, the margins and the page breaks are frozen into the file. Converting a Word file at the far end is where headers shift, tables break and signature lines land on page two.
Microsoft Word
File, then Save As (or Export), and choose PDF from the file-type list. Word 2016 and later, Microsoft 365, Windows and Mac all have it.
Google Docs
File, then Download, then PDF Document (.pdf). The download lands in your Downloads folder, ready to upload.
Excel and PowerPoint
The same File, then Save As or Export route. Check the page setup first so a wide spreadsheet does not split across sheets.
Anything else that prints
If an app can print, it can make a PDF: choose Print, then Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows or Save as PDF on a Mac.
How do I scan and fax from a computer?
Scan the pages to a PDF, save the file on your computer, then upload that PDF the same way you would any other file.
Any scanner or multifunction printer will do it, and so will the scanning app already on your computer — the Windows Scan app on a PC, Image Capture or Preview’s Import from Scanner on a Mac. If the original is more than one page, scan it as a single multi-page PDF rather than a folder of separate images; it keeps the page order right and it is one upload instead of several.
- Scan at 200–300 dpi in black and white or grayscale. Higher settings only make a bigger file; a fax renders at fax resolution either way.
- Save as PDF if the option is offered. JPG and PNG scans upload fine too, and several files are combined into one fax.
- No scanner? Photograph the page in good light, square on, then upload the JPG — or scan it with your phone and fax it straight from there.
- Check the scan before you send: if you cannot read a line on screen, the receiving machine will not print it any better.
What can you fax from a computer?
PDF, JPG, PNG and GIF files, up to 25 MB each, and up to 500 pages in a single domestic fax (50 pages on an international one). Anything else — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, a scanned TIFF — needs to be saved as a PDF first.
Accepted uploads
PDF, JPG, PNG and GIF, up to 25 MB per file. Select several files and they are sent as one fax, in the order you add them.
Not accepted
.doc and .docx, spreadsheets, presentations, and HEIC images are not accepted — save or export each of them as a PDF (or a JPG) before uploading. Photos picked from an iPhone camera roll upload as JPEG automatically; a .heic file exported from the Files app has to be converted first.
Page limits
Up to 500 pages in one domestic fax, 50 pages to an international destination. At 101 pages and up the price is $0.15 per page rather than a flat band.
A photo of a document
Perfectly acceptable as a JPG, as long as it is legible: flat, square on, well lit, and cropped to the page. A fax is black and white, so faint pencil and pale highlighter often will not survive.
Domestic prices, US and Canada, paid by card at checkout. International faxes to the 14 supported countries run $5.99, $9.99, $17.99 and $29.99 by page band, and international sending unlocks after your first completed card payment.
Can I fax from Gmail or Outlook?
No. HelpMeFax has no email-to-fax address — there is no address you can send a message to and have it come out as a fax. You attach the file in the browser instead.
Worth saying plainly, because AI assistants routinely suggest email-to-fax as though every service offers it. If the document arrived as an email attachment, download it out of Gmail or Outlook to your computer first, then upload it on the send screen. It is one extra click, and the document never passes through a mail server on its way to the fax network.
Faxes go out from shared HelpMeFax sending numbers rather than from a number of your own, so if you want a reply, put a callback fax number on the cover page or in the document.
Can a computer fax reach a real fax machine?
Yes. It arrives on an ordinary fax machine exactly like a fax sent from another machine — the recipient has no idea a computer was involved.
Your upload is converted to the black-and-white page format fax machines speak, and the call is placed to the recipient number over the telephone network. A clinic front desk, a county clerk, a hospital records department or a fax server at an insurer all receive it the same way.
- Busy or unanswered lines are retried automatically: up to 30 attempts over roughly 24 hours domestically, 3 attempts internationally.
- A delivery receipt arrives by email on every fax, and the record stays in your fax history.
- If a fax ultimately fails, the email offers a refund review; refunds are net of card-processing and per-attempt costs. A fax rejected by the recipient, or sent to a number that is not a fax line, is not refundable.
- A fax still queued, scheduled or retrying can be cancelled from your history for a full refund to your HelpMeFax account credit, applied automatically and usable on your next fax.
Can I receive a fax on my computer?
Yes, with a dedicated fax number on your account: $11.99 a month per number plus $0.05 per page received, on a US or Canadian local or toll-free number.
When a fax arrives you get an email alert with a secure link. The PDF itself stays in your HelpMeFax inbox rather than traveling as an email attachment, and from the inbox you can view it, download it or delete it. There is no reply button — a reply is simply a new fax you send. Existing numbers cannot be ported in. More on receiving faxes online.
Sending needs none of this. If you only ever send, you never need a number of your own.
If your situation is a bit different
I only need to send one fax
One document, one time, no account to maintain afterwards and no subscription to cancel.
I am on an iPhone, not a computer
Photograph or scan the page on the phone and send it from the same browser, without moving files to a computer.
I have no phone line or fax machine
Why neither is needed, and what replaces the modem and the landline.
I need to receive faxes too
A dedicated US or Canadian number, with every incoming fax waiting as a PDF in your inbox.
Computer faxing questions.
The document is on your computer. Send it from there.
First fax in about five minutes. $2.99 for 1–5 pages, delivery receipt included, no subscription.