# Defining the Fax Printer

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The fax printer is defined more or less just like any other A-Shell printer (i.e. via a printer ini file in the SYS: directory) with the following two mandatory requirements:

DEVICE = FAX:<fax printer name>

PASSTHROUGH = OFF

The <fax printer name> identifies the particular fax server to use, and can be one of the following:

•	A local fax printer name (as it appears in the printer folder.)

•	A network printer UNC name, such as "\\\\servername\\printername".

•	NULL (nothing following the prefix FAX:) to specify the default local fax printer.

Some examples:

DEVICE = FAX:fax

DEVICE = FAX:\\\\mainserver\\fax1

DEVICE = FAX:

Note that the prefix FAX: must be used in all cases. This is how the A-Shell print spooling routine realizes that you want to use the A-Shell/FAX interface, which requires that it do some preliminary setup work (loading the winfax.dll, dynamically linking the functions needed, allocating temporary memory, pre-scanning the print file to extract the essential header commands, etc.) before doing the normal print processing of the file.