OT: Sharing a telephone line with a fax machine?

[Kamog]

This is way off topic, but I would like some help on how to connect a fax machine to a telephone line with voice mail, and have everything work. Today I went to the store and I was considering buying an all-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax machine. I don't have a printer, scanner, or fax machine right now, but occasionally the need arises for me to either print, fax, or scan. An all-in-one machine would be convenient to have at home.

So at the store, I talk to the friendly salesman, who tells me that if I want to receive faxes then I will need a separate phone line. He said that if I put the machine on the same line as my regular phone, then if a fax comes in it won't know whether to go to voice mail or to the fax, and it won't work. Getting a second phone line would be expensive and not worth it since I would only need to receive a fax maybe a couple of times a month, at most.

I wondered if the salesman is right. It seemed odd to me that there's no way to get this sort of setup to work.

What do you think? Is there some way to set things up so that an incoming call will go to the fax if it's a fax and go to voice mail if it's a telephone call?