LetterAgent
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Every fax generation loses detail: the copy comes out progressively muddier, edges blur, and fine print fills in. The first fax was already a scan of the original; faxing the printout scans it again and transmits it at fax resolution, stacking a second round of degradation on the first. After two or three generations, small text can become unreadable.
A fax machine scans at a fixed, relatively coarse resolution and converts the page to black and white with no gray tones. Anything the scanner cannot resolve cleanly, light pencil marks, fine serifs, halftone photos, gets approximated, and the approximation is what prints. That printout is now the best version that exists.
Fax that printout and the cycle repeats: the scanner approximates the approximation. Edges that were slightly soft get softer, speckles become blotches, and thin lines either vanish or thicken into blobs. Photocopies degrade the same way, for the same reason: each generation is a copy of a copy, and noise accumulates while detail does not.
| Generation | What it is | What you notice |
|---|---|---|
| The original | Typed or printed document | Clean and sharp |
| First fax | A scan of the original, transmitted at fax resolution | Slightly soft, fine for reading |
| Second fax (fax of a fax) | A scan of the first fax's printout | Muddy edges; small print strains the eyes |
| Third fax and beyond | A scan of a scan of a scan | Small text unreadable; photos become blobs |
Bold, large print survives the longest; small print, signatures, and anything with fine detail die first. If the document includes a photo or a shaded logo, expect it to turn into a gray smear by the second generation.
Signatures are the first casualty of re-faxing, and it is easy to see why: a signature is thin, irregular pen strokes on white space, exactly the kind of fine detail the fax scanner approximates most aggressively. After one fax the signature looks a little soft; after two it looks like it was drawn with a dying marker; after three it can be hard to tell it is a signature at all.
This matters because faxed signatures are everywhere: contracts, authorizations, medical consent forms. A signature that degrades past recognition can cause the receiving party to reject the document and ask for a resend, which is how one bad fax turns into three. If the document's whole purpose is the signature, treat the original like it is irreplaceable: fax from it directly, or scan it instead.
The practical rule is simple. One fax generation is fine for almost anything. The second is where you start squinting. By the third, stop and get a better source document: ask the sender to re-fax from the original, or have them scan and email it. Your eyes will thank you, and so will whoever has to verify that signature.
Ready to fax it? Fax with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is sent.
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