Member Avatar for subrata_ushasi

Hi ,

I am trying to send news letter through outlook express with html from my website as follows :

I have a news letter icon in my website ,When I click , it will open outlook express with html (news letter) and just fill up the email id and send then some one will receive this news letter.

Thanks in advance ,

Subrata

  • 3 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 239 Views
  • 5 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by mattster

Dani AI

Generated

— the behavior you want (click a site icon and have Outlook open a new message with your full HTML newsletter as the message body) looks simple, but it’s not reliably possible with a plain mailto: link. The body field in a mailto URI is intended for short plain-text content and implementations vary: browsers and mail clients may strip tags, treat them as literal text, or simply ignore long bodies. (datatracker.ietf.org)
Also note that relying on Outlook Express is risky today — it’s been superseded in modern Windows builds and isn’t a universal handler on current systems. (learn.microsoft.com)

Recommended approaches (practical, reliable)

  • Server-side send (best for newsletters): keep your HTML template on the server and send the message from your web app (SMTP or an email API). This guarantees the HTML is delivered as intended and gives you unsubscribes, logging, and deliverability control. Use a library or provider (PHPMailer, SendGrid, Mailgun, SES). Example (PHP + PHPMailer, minimal):
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
$mail->isHTML(true);
$mail->Subject = 'Monthly newsletter';
$mail->Body = file_get_contents('/path/newsletter.html');
$mail->addAddress($_POST['recipient']);
$mail->send();

Using a server send also avoids client-side encoding/length issues and lets you include a plain-text alternative and proper headers. (mailtrap.io)

  • If you must open a user’s desktop Outlook compose window with HTML prefilled: that requires code running on the user’s machine (Outlook Object Model / an add-in) or handing the user an .eml file to open. Desktop automation can set MailItem.HTMLBody, but it isn’t something a normal web page can do remotely (it requires COM/VSTO/VBA and user trust). Example (VBA sketch):
Set ol = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set msg = ol.CreateItem(0)
msg.BodyFormat = 2
msg.HTMLBody = "<html>...your newsletter...</html>"
msg.Display

Programmatic HTML insertion into Outlook is supported by the Outlook API but must run locally. (learn.microsoft.com)

Quick checklist

  • Prefer server-side sending for real newsletters.
  • If composing client-side, accept only plain-text or very simple HTML via mailto and test widely. (datatracker.ietf.org)
  • Test templates in Outlook/Gmail/Apple Mail and include an unsubscribe and plain-text version.

This ties together ’s simple mailto idea (works for quick plain-text) and ’s warning about Outlook Express (obsolete) — but for production newsletters, use a server-side delivery path or a proper client add-in rather than relying on mailto.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for mattster

<a href="mailto:">Newsletter</a>

Then you just compose your email as normal

Member Avatar for subrata_ushasi

mattster ,
Thanks for early replye but this is as simple as . What I want is --I have an html designed newsletter and when I open outlook by clicking href...automatically this html newsletter will come as signature or content (not attached) then simply I will enter email and send.

Thanks

Subrata

Member Avatar for almostbob

it is as simple as mattster wrote, just extended a little
<a href="mailto:?body=entityencodedhtml&title=title&bcc=bcc&cc=cc">email</a>

As a last ditch effort RTFM :; READ THE rude word MANUAL

outlook express?, dead in the water,
putting your newsletter on a href is not a useful solution, windows vista,7,8 and higher versions to come, do not have installed mail programs for your href to open, the link will break
a simpler solution would be opening a page containing the formatted newsletter

to capture the email address for later use is another idea entirely

If you are using server script, php asp jsp, use the server mail() function and just input the user email address, and store in an sql table
which will likewise be simplified by RTFM

Edited by almostbob
Member Avatar for mattster

I agree with almostbob, it is possible to do i this way, but you're far better using a web based mail client to send it, rather than a desktop based like outlook. There is also far less that can go wrong doing it this way.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.