Does anyone know how to send a HTML emial.

patpawlowski · 03-02-2004, 04:04 PM

How do you send an HTML email? I always assumed that if you designed a web page and put it in a plain text email that the client would detect the <html> tag and display it appropriately. Evidently not. I need to know what to enter into a plain text email so that the receiving email client will interpret the markup.

thanks,

Mara · 03-02-2004, 04:25 PM

Which email client do you use? HTML mail is usually sent as an attachment.

deiussum · 03-02-2004, 07:56 PM

I believe HTML e-mails generally have a header specifying that it is a Content-Type of HTML. Depending on your e-mail client, there is probably an option somewhere to specify if you want to send HTML or plain text e-mails, and then it will set the header appropriately.

patpawlowski · 03-02-2004, 09:17 PM

I'm not using a client the email will be sent from our web server via a form.

deiussum · 03-02-2004, 09:45 PM

Ok, then what API, object, whatever are you using to send the e-mail? Many of them I have used have a way of specifying that you want to send the mail in an HTML format. Or are you just connecting with a socket to an SMTP server and doing all the protocol work yourself?

codedv · 03-03-2004, 03:44 AM

The following would be the conversation which takes place with the SMTP server to send a simple HTML e-mail:

Code:

HELO: email-client
250 good
MAIL FROM: test@testaddress.com
250 good
RCPT TO: toemail@test.com
250 good
DATA
354 start mail input
To: Joe Bloggs <joeb@test.com>
From: Test <test@test.com>
Subject: Test HTML E-mail
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary = 1000010000
MIME-Version: 1.0

This is a MIME encoded message.

--1000010000
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

PGh0bWw+CjxoZWFkPgo8L2hlYWQ+Cjxib2R5Pgo8YSBo
cmVmPSJ3d3cubXlsaW5rLmNvbSI+dGVzdCBsaW5rPC9h
Pi4gCjxoMT5UaGlzIGlzIGEgdGVzdCBlLW1haWwgc2Vu
dCBpbiBodG1sIGZvcm1hdDwvaDE+CjwvYm9keT4KPC9od
G1sPg==--
.
250 mail queued for delivery
QUIT

The bits in bold are what the SMTP server says. Its usually good practice to encode content. The base 64 encoded part of the message reads:

Code:

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<a href="www.mylink.com">test link</a>. 
<h1>This is a test e-mail sent in html format</h1>
</body>
</html>

The above dialogue will work if you connect directly to an SMTP server. If you replace the address in the RCPT TO line with your own email address you should reiceve a nice HTML e-mail in your mail box.

patpawlowski · 03-03-2004, 08:17 AM

I was using PHP to send the email. The book I was using didn't cover HTML email but I found what I needed on the PHP website. Basically I needed to add:

"MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
"Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";

to the header. Essentially what codedv said.

Thanks everyone.