Reasons to Receive a Blank Page in a Fax

When sending faxes, sometimes blank pages end up on the other end of wherever the fax is sent. This is often frustrating for the person receiving the fax, as well as the sender. There are a number of reasons why something like this occurs, ranging from operator error to machine malfunction to extra pages being sent.

Wrong Way for Faxes

When sending a fax, the information on the paper you are sending needs to be facing a specific direction. Sometimes it's faceup, sometimes it is facedown, depending on the fax machine. If you face a document the wrong way, however, the blank side of the document will be what is sent by the machine, delivering nothing but a blank page on the other end and, in turn, a bit of embarrassment on your end. However, if this problem is corrected and a blank page still arrives on the other end, there might be other problems going on.

Extra Pages On Document

Sometimes extra blank pages end up in the middle or at the end of a document and these are inadvertently faxed to a receiving party. This can be confusing for the receiving party and is, at the very least, a waste of paper. This also occurs when documents are sent directly from a computer via fax, as these lingering final pages can be left over in various word processing programs. Look through any document, digital or hard copy, before sending it via fax.

Out of Ink

Fax machines work like any printer when they receive documents, so a reason for blank pages could be that the receiving fax machine is simply out of ink and needs to be refilled. This usually has a number of warning signs, like faded previous texts or random blank pages in faxes from time to time. To be sure the fax is out of ink, try running some test sheets through the receiving fax machine and see if there is any ink on the piece of paper.