If you don’t have a fax machine and need to send a single fax you might be looking at online fax services. I was in this position and found that most online fax services are subscription based, aimed at businesses that regularly need to send and receive faxes. I only wanted to send one fax, and didn’t fancy walking to the local copy shop to do it (it probably would have been cheaper, but you have to factor in the time of travelling there as well).
I looked at a few sites but settled on FaxZero.com. They have a free fax service that will insert an advert on the fax cover page, and a paid service with no ads. The faxes are sent at a higher priority with the paid service as well. The paid service is $1.99 per fax, and you can pay using PayPal. There are no additional costs which is good if you just need to send a one-off fax.
You don’t need to register, you just enter your name, email, receiver’s name, fax number, and then attach an image, .doc or PDF of your fax. I attached a JPEG. I then paid my $1.99 via PayPal.
The confirm page tells you that the fax should be sent in the next 30 minutes. You also get an email with a link to the status page.
About 10 minutes later I got a confirmation email telling me that the fax had been delivered. And more importantly I heard a short time later from the recipient that the fax had been received.
I’ve used the FaxZero service twice, and both times the fax has got through pretty quickly. I do think $1.99 is a bit expensive if you are just sending a single page, but it does work, and you could always try the free fax option if the price bothers you.