Receive HTML Email from PHP Script Contact Form

Question

cass84 0 Newbie Poster

16 Years Ago

I was wondering if there was a way to create a PHP Contact Form where
the email that is sent can be formatted for html. So that for example
the email that is received is formatted like an html page where it
contains a background, images & formatted text. I can't figure out how
to do this. I tried something like "$MESSAGE_BODY .= "<img src="images/
bgaccess.jpg" width="800" height="653" />;" to insert an image but I
received an error. I would think there was a way to format the email.
Can anyone help?

I have the following code so far:

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>
<?php
if ($_POST["email"]<>'') {
        $ToEmail = '...@email.com';
        $EmailSubject = 'Site contact form ';
        $mailheader = "From: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
        $mailheader .= "Reply-To: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
        $mailheader .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
        $MESSAGE_BODY = "<img src="images/bgaccess.jpg" width="800"
height="653" />";
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Name: ".$_POST["name"]."<br>";
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Email: ".$_POST["email"]."<br>";
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Comment: ".nl2br($_POST["comment"])."<br>";
        mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader) or die
("Failure");
?>
Your message was sent
<?php
} else {

?>
<form action="test.php" method="post">
<table width="400" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="29%" class="bodytext">Your name:</td>
<td width="71%"><input name="name" type="text" id="name" size="32"></
td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="bodytext">Email address:</td>
<td><input name="email" type="text" id="email" size="32"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="bodytext">Comment:</td>
<td><textarea name="comment" cols="45" rows="6" id="comment"
class="bodytext"></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="bodytext">&nbsp;</td>
<td align="left" valign="top"><input type="submit" name="Submit"
value="Send"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<?php
};

?>
</body>
</html>

email html-css php

Edited 16 Years Ago by cass84 because: n/a

4 Contributors
7 Replies
354 Views
1 Day Discussion Span
Latest Post 16 Years Ago Latest Post by muralibobby2015

Dani AI

Generated 9 Months Ago

Short answer: yes — you can send HTML-formatted email from PHP, but the problem you hit is a mix of (A) PHP string/quote syntax, (B) headers not being sent or passed consistently, and (C) differences in how mail clients render HTML (as warned). Below are practical fixes and things to test, tied to points raised in the thread.

Quoting and building the HTML body: the error came from using double quotes inside a double-quoted PHP string. Use a heredoc (or single-quoted strings) so you can include double quotes safely and build a full HTML block. For example:

$message = <<<HTML
<img src="http://yourdomain.example/images/bgaccess.jpg" width="800" height="653" alt="">
<p>Name: {$_POST['name']}<br>Email: {$_POST['email']}</p>
HTML;

Headers and mail(): make sure the same header variable you build is the one you pass into mail(). Mixing $headers and $mailheader will result in the message being delivered as plain text. The mail transport also cares about proper CRLF line endings and a MIME-Version: 1.0 + Content-type: text/html header when sending HTML.
Images and backgrounds: use absolute URLs if you host images externally, but many clients block remote images by default. If you need the image to appear reliably, embed it as a related attachment (CID) rather than relying on a background image. PHPMailer handles this cleanly; example of embedding an image and referencing it in the HTML:

$mail->AddEmbeddedImage('/full/path/images/bgaccess.jpg', 'bgcid');
$mail->isHTML(true);
$mail->Body = '<img src="cid:bgcid" alt="bg">';

SMTP vs local mail(): as suggested, PHPMailer (or another modern library) simplifies SMTP auth, attachments and embedding. For development you can also use a local capture tool (MailHog/Mailtrap) so you don’t spam real inboxes while testing.
Troubleshooting checklist:
- Send to Gmail/Outlook and use “view original” / “view source” to confirm Content-Type.
- Log the headers and body before sending to verify what’s actually going out.
- If Exchange or your host rewrites the From header, set a valid envelope sender (or use authenticated SMTP).
- Keep the HTML simple: inline styles, table-based layout, and provide a plain-text alternative.

Notes tied to thread: ’s advice to use absolute URLs is good; ’s reminder about client support is essential; ’s PHPMailer approach is the most robust when you need attachments or embedded images.

All 7 Replies

CFROG 9 Posting Pro in Training

16 Years Ago

For my html mail the only thing I did was alter my headers and there was really no problem. It's not that much different from what you already have. I suppose this is something I could stand to learn a little more about ... once I got it working I just moved on to something else ;)

$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: Somebody' . "\r\n" ;
$headers .= 'Reply-To: somebody@some_site.com' . "\r\n" ;
$headers .= 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

The one thing I would do different here is to ad your url

$MESSAGE_BODY .= '<img src="http://yourURL.com/images/
bgaccess.jpg" width="800" height="653" />';

Edited 16 Years Ago by CFROG because: n/a

vsmash 14 Dinosaur

16 Years Ago

Also be aware that most new email clients will ignore background images and behavioural css.

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CFROG 9 Posting Pro in Training · Answer 1 · 2010-03-05T10:21:36+00:00

Really? See that ... there really is no limit to the things you learn every day.

muralibobby2015 17 Posting Pro · Answer 2 · 2010-03-05T11:00:19+00:00

<?
ob_start();
extract($_REQUEST);
include("includes/class.phpmailer.php");
include("includes/class.smtp.php");
if($_POST)
{
//echo $attach;exit;
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////             send email               /////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		 
	
	$img_name=$_FILES["attach"]["name"];
    $file_name = $img_name;
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["attach"]["tmp_name"], "attachments/" . $file_name); 	
		
$sitename="sitename";
	
		//this subject will be visible only for you
		$sub = "subject here";
	
		$msg = "<table width='100%'  border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0'>
					  <tr>
						<td height='8'></td>
					  </tr>
					 
					  <tr>
						<td height='8'></td>
					  </tr>
					   
					  
					  
					  <tr>
						<td height='4'></td>
					  </tr>
					</table>";
			
			$msg = stripslashes($msg);
			//echo $msg;
//	echo "<br>";
//		echo exit;
			
			
			
			//include("includes/constants.php");
		
			$SmtpAuth = 1; // 1 For IsSMTP() and 0 For IsMail()	
			
			$mail = new PHPMailer();
			
			//$mail->IsMail();
			if($SmtpAuth == 0)
			{
				$mail->IsMail();
			} 
			else 
			{
				$mail->IsSMTP();
				$mail->Host = "write your hostname";  // specify main and backup server
				$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
				$mail->Username = "write smtp username";  // SMTP username
				$mail->Password = "write password here"; // SMTP password
			}                                      // set mailer to use SMTP
			
			
			
				$mail->From     = $_POST[email];
				$mail->FromName = $_POST[name];
				$mail->AddAddress($_POST[friendemail]);
				$mail->AddAttachment('attachments/'.$_FILES["attach"]["name"]);
/*				$mail->AddCC($resNewsUsers["emailid"]);
				$mail->AddBCC($resNewsUsers["emailid"]);*/
				$mail->IsHTML(true);                                  // set email format to HTML
				$mail->Subject = $sub;
				$mail->Body = $msg;
				$mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";
				$mail->Send();
			
		$send=1;
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////            end          /////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

}
?>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi">
    </script>
    
  </head>
  <body>
  <form name="form" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <center>you can send mails in any languages</center>
  <div id='translControl'>
  <? if($send==1)
  {
  ?>
  successfully sent.
  <?
  }
  ?>
  
     
</div>
<br>name: <input type='textbox' id="name" name="name"/>
<br>email: <input type='textbox' id="email" name="email"/>
<br>
to email: 
<input type='textbox' id="friendemail" name="friendemail"/>
    <br>Title : <input type='textbox' id="transl1" name="transl1"/>
	 <tr align="center">
              <td width="23%">&nbsp;</td>
              <td width="14%" align="left">Attach</td>
              <td width="3%" align="left">&nbsp;</td>
              <td width="51%" align="left">
                  <input type="file" name="attach">			  </td>
              <td width="2%">&nbsp;</td>
			 </tr>					 	 					   		   					   

    <br>Body<br><textarea id="transl2" name="transl2" style="width:600px;height:200px"></textarea>
	
	<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"></input>
    <br><div id="errorDiv"></div>
	</form>
  </body>
</html>

see this using smtp we can send mails from localhost. in localhost $SmtpAuth = 1; and inserver put like this $SmtpAuth = 0

cass84 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 3 · 2010-03-05T19:56:51+00:00

For my html mail the only thing I did was alter my headers and there was really no problem. It's not that much different from what you already have. I suppose this is something I could stand to learn a little more about ... once I got it working I just moved on to something else ;)
$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: Somebody' . "\r\n" ;
$headers .= 'Reply-To: somebody@some_site.com' . "\r\n" ;
$headers .= 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
The one thing I would do different here is to ad your url
$MESSAGE_BODY .= '<img src="http://yourURL.com/images/
bgaccess.jpg" width="800" height="653" />';

I tried your suggestion so that the code now looks like this:

$headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
		$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
		$headers .= "From: ".$_POST["email"]. "\r\n" ;
		$headers .= 'Reply-To: '.$_POST["email"] . "\r\n" ;
		$headers .= 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
		
		$MESSAGE_BODY .= '<img src="" width="200" height="300" />';
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Name: ".$_POST["name"]."<br>";
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Email: ".$_POST["email"]."<br>";
        $MESSAGE_BODY .= "Comment: ".nl2br($_POST["comment"])."<br>";
        mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader) or die ("Failure");

However this changed the email to Plain Text and I saw actual code instead of HTML. I am using Dreamweaver CS4. Could this have anything to do with it?

cass84 0 Newbie Poster · Answer 4 · 2010-03-05T20:08:59+00:00

<?
ob_start();
extract($_REQUEST);
include("includes/class.phpmailer.php");
include("includes/class.smtp.php");
if($_POST)
{
//echo $attach;exit;
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////             send email               /////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		 
	
	$img_name=$_FILES["attach"]["name"];
    $file_name = $img_name;
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["attach"]["tmp_name"], "attachments/" . $file_name); 	
		
$sitename="sitename";
	
		//this subject will be visible only for you
		$sub = "subject here";
	
		$msg = "<table width='100%'  border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0'>
					  <tr>
						<td height='8'></td>
					  </tr>
					 
					  <tr>
						<td height='8'></td>
					  </tr>
					   
					  
					  
					  <tr>
						<td height='4'></td>
					  </tr>
					</table>";
			
			$msg = stripslashes($msg);
			//echo $msg;
//	echo "<br>";
//		echo exit;
			
			
			
			//include("includes/constants.php");
		
			$SmtpAuth = 1; // 1 For IsSMTP() and 0 For IsMail()	
			
			$mail = new PHPMailer();
			
			//$mail->IsMail();
			if($SmtpAuth == 0)
			{
				$mail->IsMail();
			} 
			else 
			{
				$mail->IsSMTP();
				$mail->Host = "write your hostname";  // specify main and backup server
				$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
				$mail->Username = "write smtp username";  // SMTP username
				$mail->Password = "write password here"; // SMTP password
			}                                      // set mailer to use SMTP
			
			
			
				$mail->From     = $_POST[email];
				$mail->FromName = $_POST[name];
				$mail->AddAddress($_POST[friendemail]);
				$mail->AddAttachment('attachments/'.$_FILES["attach"]["name"]);
/*				$mail->AddCC($resNewsUsers["emailid"]);
				$mail->AddBCC($resNewsUsers["emailid"]);*/
				$mail->IsHTML(true);                                  // set email format to HTML
				$mail->Subject = $sub;
				$mail->Body = $msg;
				$mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";
				$mail->Send();
			
		$send=1;
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////            end          /////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

}
?>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi">
    </script>
    
  </head>
  <body>
  <form name="form" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <center>you can send mails in any languages</center>
  <div id='translControl'>
  <? if($send==1)
  {
  ?>
  successfully sent.
  <?
  }
  ?>
  
     
</div>
<br>name: <input type='textbox' id="name" name="name"/>
<br>email: <input type='textbox' id="email" name="email"/>
<br>
to email: 
<input type='textbox' id="friendemail" name="friendemail"/>
    <br>Title : <input type='textbox' id="transl1" name="transl1"/>
	 <tr align="center">
              <td width="23%">&nbsp;</td>
              <td width="14%" align="left">Attach</td>
              <td width="3%" align="left">&nbsp;</td>
              <td width="51%" align="left">
                  <input type="file" name="attach">			  </td>
              <td width="2%">&nbsp;</td>
			 </tr>					 	 					   		   					   

    <br>Body<br><textarea id="transl2" name="transl2" style="width:600px;height:200px"></textarea>
	
	<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"></input>
    <br><div id="errorDiv"></div>
	</form>
  </body>
</html>

see this using smtp we can send mails from localhost. in localhost $SmtpAuth = 1; and inserver put like this $SmtpAuth = 0

This is way over my head... Please forgive me as i'm a beginner...

Are these files that I need to download and save to the includes directory?
When attempting this code I received the following errors when opening the page:

Warning: include(includes/class.phpmailer.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 4

Warning: include(includes/class.phpmailer.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 4

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'includes/class.phpmailer.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/services/vux/lib/php') in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 4

Warning: include(includes/class.smtp.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 5

Warning: include(includes/class.smtp.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 5

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'includes/class.smtp.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/services/vux/lib/php') in /data/17/1/138/3/1790329/user/1937057/htdocs/Portal/test.php on line 5

Also, i'm not sure what to do with this:

$mail->IsSMTP();
				$mail->Host = "write your hostname";  // specify main and backup server
				$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
				$mail->Username = "write smtp username";  // SMTP username
				$mail->Password = "write password here"; // SMTP password

I'm thinking this defines where to send the email? Is there anyway to do a simple "to" line? The email address I would like to send it to is on an exchange server. I'm not sure how to complete this section.

I do however love the code because it solved my next question on how to attach a file. So I would like to try to figure this out...

muralibobby2015 17 Posting Pro · Answer 5 · 2010-03-06T11:02:13+00:00

you include phpmailer class, smtp in your includes folder. it will free download.
and next thing

$mail->IsSMTP();
				$mail->Host = "write your hostname";  // specify main and backup server
				$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
				$mail->Username = "write smtp username";  // SMTP username
				$mail->Password = "write password here"; // SMTP password

hostname:localhost.
username:write smtp username. //website username email
password: password //website password

Receive HTML Email from PHP Script Contact Form

Dani AI

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