A fax form is the page an office puts in front of the document it sends: the transmittal or cover form that names the sender and recipient, counts the pages, states the subject and carries a confidentiality line. Fax forms, fax templates, a fax sheet and a fax letter are the same page under different names, and a fax face sheet is what a hospital calls the cover on a records fax. This page describes the fields, offers the free fax template on this site, and says what each kind of office adds to the basic form.
The fields on a fax form template
Date. Sender's name, organisation, fax number and a callback phone number. Recipient's name, organisation and fax number, written in full rather than assumed from the number dialled. Number of pages including the cover. A subject line that says what the pages are for without disclosing anything sensitive. A short message or the action requested. A confidentiality statement telling a wrong recipient to call the sender and destroy the pages. A blank fax form leaves those as labelled boxes to be filled by hand or on screen; the free fax cover sheet on this site is that form, and every online fax service lets a default version be saved to the account and attached to each send.
Fax templates for different offices
A medical office adds the confidentiality wording for protected health information and keeps patient identifiers off the cover; a fax face sheet on a records fax names the requesting party and the authorisation reference. A law office adds a privileged and confidential line and the matter reference. A supplier's fax letter for a purchase order carries the order number and a contact for queries. A clinic's fax sheets for referrals carry the referring clinician's name and a callback. None of these change the basic form; they change the subject line and the statement at the bottom, and a fax template free of charge that leaves those lines editable serves all of them.
Printing, saving and sending the form
For a machine, print the blank fax form, fill it in by hand and place it first in the feeder. For an online service, fill the form on screen as a PDF, or type the fields into the vendor's cover page at send time, where the sender details and confidentiality line are saved once and the recipient and subject are entered per fax. The free fax template on this site prints and fills either way. Check the callback number and the page count before sending, because a wrong recipient with no callback cannot comply with the confidentiality instruction, and a missing page count hides a short transmission. The header line on every page is set separately, in the machine or the account.
Questions people ask about fax form
Is a fax form the same as a cover sheet?
Yes. Fax form, cover sheet, transmittal, fax sheet and fax face sheet all name the first page that identifies sender, recipient, pages and subject.
Do I need a fax form for every fax?
For anything going to a shared machine or carrying confidential pages, yes. A one-page reply to a known recipient can go without one.
Where do I get a free fax template?
The free fax cover sheet on this site prints or fills on screen. Online fax services also save a default cover in the account.