Typst pages that hold up on a fax machine: black on white, a cover block and a 10 pt floor under body text. From Fax for Agents.
Website · Docs · Send a fax · Pricing · Changelog
A fax page is a 1-bit image at 204 by 98 or 204 by 196 dots per inch. Grey turns to dots or disappears, and small type breaks up. This template lays out a document with that in mind:
- a cover block with to, from, both fax numbers, the date, the page count and the subject
- black text on white, with no fills or tints by default
- a floor of 10 pt under text, footnotes and sub- and superscripts included (math and
scaleare not covered) - margins for US Letter and A4
- a one-line footer with the page count and a link to faxforagents.com
It needs no network and no packages besides itself. It has been compiled with Typst 0.12.0, 0.13.1 and 0.15.1.
Start a document
typst init @preview/dialtone-fax:0.1.0 my-fax
cd my-fax
typst compile main.typ
Or call it from your own file:
#import "@preview/dialtone-fax:0.1.0": fax
#show: fax.with(
paper: "a4",
to: [County Records Office],
to-fax: [+1 202 555 0143],
from: [Your name],
from-fax: [+1 202 555 0188],
subject: [Records request],
)
Dear records clerk,
Options
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
to, to-fax, from, from-fax, subject |
none |
Cover block fields. Empty fields stay blank. |
pages |
auto |
Page count on the cover. auto counts the pages of this document, a cover page included. Pass a number if you add pages from elsewhere. |
date |
auto |
auto is today as YYYY-MM-DD. Takes a datetime or any content. |
title |
"Fax" |
The large word above the cover block. |
paper |
"us-letter" |
"us-letter" or "a4". Anything else stops the compile with a message. |
body-size |
12pt |
Body text size. Below 10 pt stops the compile with a message. |
font |
("Liberation Sans", "DejaVu Sans", "Noto Sans") |
Tried in order. Typst falls back to its own fonts when none is installed. |
cover |
true |
true puts the block on page 1, "page" gives it a page of its own, false leaves it out. Anything else stops the compile. |
footer-link |
true |
false keeps the page count and drops the faxforagents.com link. |
cover-block is exported on its own if you want the block without the page setup. size-floor is the
floor, 10 pt.
Why 10 pt
We measured it. The fax legibility bench has the code. It set one passage at 4 to 16 pt in four open fonts and read each page with OCR at both fax resolutions. On 2026-11-08 every font read at 98% or better from 7 pt at standard resolution.
That was a clean simulation with no phone line, scanner or printer, so the floor sits 3 pt higher. The post The smallest font that survives a fax has the results and their limits.
Sub- and superscripts keep the full text size. Typst scales them after show rules run, so a smaller
size would slip under the floor. Two things are outside it: math, whose scripts Typst sizes on its own,
and anything inside scale. Keep both out of a fax page or check the result.
What it does not do
A fill you pass directly to an element still applies. The template only sets the defaults to none. Images are placed as you give them, so check a photo or a scan before you send it.
The template sends nothing. It makes a PDF.
The send fax docs cover sending that PDF from code. They show the upload, the quote and the send through the Fax for Agents API.
Licence
The package is MIT. The files in template/ are MIT-0, so a document you make from them carries no
notice. Both texts are in LICENSE. Made by JSB Holdings LLC, the company behind
Fax for Agents.
