PROCOMM PLUS

Overview of Package

ProComm is a fax and terminal software program.

Evaluation

Installation

ProComm Plus for Windows comes on four floppy disks. Installation time was six minutes, including system reboot. Users are given two install options: express and custom. Express installs the entire ProComm package, while custom allows the user to remove some of the extra components. After the initial installation, the program tells you that it is about to reboot Windows. Once rebooted ProComm automatically starts up and prompts the user to make a few display choices. The program was able to detect the modem we were using, but not it's particular type. Fortunately ProComm comes with an extensive list of modem manufactures and we were able to find our particular model. The entire package takes up about 11.5 megabytes of disk space, which is the largest of the four packages.

Screen Layout

ProComm is primarily a terminal program and as such the main screen centers around a terminal display. The novice user will be a bit overwhelmed by the number of buttons found on this screen, especially since the buttons' function is not always clear. Fortunately standard Windows menus are present thus directing the user to the desired functions.

Most of ProComm's fax functions are run from three windows. A single window acts as the launch point for all the functions associated with sending a fax including cover page creation, scheduling, and recipient selection. Another window holds both send and receive logs as well as the schedule log. This particular screen makes effective use of limited screen space by changing the display each time the user selects a different log. The third window is the cover sheet viewer/editor which can also be run as a stand alone program. This window has the same layout found in most desktop publishing packages, thus making cover page creation a snap.

Receiving Faxes

ProComm had the least intuitive interface when it came to receiving faxes. For instance a single button indicates that you can answer an incoming fax now, but there are no buttons or menu options to indicate that you want the program to automatically answer incoming faxes. It took a bit of digging, but we were able to find a section in the setup window for selecting an answer mode. There we were able to set the package to auto-answer the phone. ProComm does have a nice feature in that it can support distinctive ringing. This feature is handy on phone lines that are used for both fax and voice transmissions.

The receive log allows faxes to be printed, viewed, deleted, and forwarded. Printing and viewing faxes is handled by a stand alone fax viewer. The viewer's features are pretty standard in that faxes can be rotated and zoomed, however, it is limited by the ability to only view one page of a fax at a time. The fax forward function allows the user to manually select received faxes for forwarding. The usefulness of this function is limited by the absence of the ability to forward faxes unattended.

Incoming faxes can be automatically viewed and printed, however, there are no other user notification options. ProComm does not have any export functions for saving faxes as bitmaps, however, it can receive binary files.

We had problems receiving some of our faxes with ProComm. Occasionally a fax that had been reported as being received and in good condition would not appear in the receive log. In fact the fax could not be found on the hard-drive. Quick Link II also had a similar problem so we were unable to determine if the software was causing the problems or if it was the modems we were using.

Phone Book Capabilities

ProComm has a full featured phone book. Users can add/delete fax numbers, create groups of numbers, specify a faxing setup for each user and for each group. This last feature allows the creation of fax groups that can be called with a particular calling card or with long distance dialing codes. ProComm was also able to remove duplicate entries from the recipient list. Some of the other programs were not able to distinguish fax numbers that were the same but were in different groups.

The only problem the phone book had was that once a fax entry was assigned to a group there was no way to fax to that number other than selecting the group. A quick work around for this problem was to create a group of one.

Cover Page Composition

The ProComm cover page editor was one of the best we tested. It's a full WYSIWYG editor that allows the insertion and placement of black & white bitmaps, Windows metafiles, 'mail merge' sender/receiver fields, generic text fields using any TrueType font, and a box drawing object. The editor comes with 101 pre-built cover pages, all of which can be customized. Cover sheets are saved in a proprietary format and can only be edited with the ProComm editor.

Sending Faxes

Sending a fax in ProComm is fairly easy. Users either print their documents to the ProComm fax driver or they create a simple memo fax directly in ProComm. ProComm allows the selection multiple groups of recipients as well as any number of attachments. Attachments can be both binary files and other fax documents.

Scheduling is handled with a very nice graphical display. The date is selected from a calendar and the time can be selected by setting the hands of a clock. ProComm has the ability to retry a fax number a set number of times if a transmission failed. Be careful though because the retry setting is global which means both local and long distance calls will be re-dialed. The send log displays the status of faxes that were sent. This log lacks the ability to reschedule a fax that failed to transmit and so a user would have to recreate the fax. Faxes that have not yet been sent and are still in the schedule log can be rescheduled for another date or time.

Faxes may be previewed before sending only in a roundabout way. ProComm can send a fax to a file instead of a number, thus a user can use the fax viewer to exam the results before sending the document over the phone.

One of the advanced options in ProComm is the ability to use multiple fax modems, either for receiving or sending faxes.

Help System

The on-line help system is fairly nice. It combines graphics with text to explain various features and functions. The system is context sensitive only to the point of a single function per window. Additional functions per window may be found by following imbedded links or by using the search function. Performing a search on a term is sometimes frustrating as not all of the terms found on the program's windows can be found.

Extra Features & Cost

ProComm Plus is a full featured terminal program and it can act as a Bulletin Board Service. The average Canadian retail price for the latest version of ProComm Plus is $162.58.