HTML in Mail()

aaron_karp

Hi, thanks for looking,

I'm having some issues. I'm trying to send email using a mail() function on my site, and I'm trying to dynamically include images based on their absolute URL on the web. It looks like this:

$banner = "$numFields<a href=$link><img src=$image></a>\n\n\n\n";

$message = $banner.$message;

mail("$recipient", "$subject", "$message", "From: $senderEmail");

The problem I'm encountering is that when the email arrives at my Yahoo! account, the entire HTML code is displayed, and it doesn't interpret it. As a consequence, the image is not displayed; it merely contains a link to the image, since yahoo automatically creates a link based on the contents of the $image variable (and absolute reference to a picture).

Do you have any suggestions for how to circumvent this? How can I get PHP to mail beautiful, nice HTML emails? Thanks!

dalecosp

This is a variation on an oft-asked question; it even irks some so-called 'senior members.' Rather than look up the exact reply, I'll refer you to the mail() section of the online manual. When you look up the mail() function, if you read far enough down the page, you should see some example code for adding headers to the mail() params in order to send HTML email. Basically, it's a "content-type" declaration that has to be included. Probably if you view the headers at Yahoo!, you'll see that you've been mailing "text/plain".....

It's really not difficult at all. The first site I ever used HTML mail from, I just cut'n'pasted the code off the manual page directly into my script 😉

Have fun...

aaron_karp

This helps some - thanks, but now the image appears as a small box (blue border), but without the image inside. Still, it's better than just showing HTML. Here's my code - what's wrong with it?

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

$banner = "$numrows<a href=$link><img src=$image></a>\n\n\n\n";

$message = $banner.$message;

mail("$recipient", "$subject", "$message", $headers);

I'm 99% sure that I have the target and link variables correct - why isn't it working still?

dalecosp

Hmm, take a look at the HTML source for the email, that should give you (us) a hint. If you can't find the issue, post it here and I'll take a look if I can still keep my eyes open....

aaron_karp

HOT! I GOT IT TO WORK!

I think it was a problem with the variables I was putting into the HTML code, but now it works!!!

By the way - thanks for all this help. It's 2AM over here in MA....

Good luck becoming a jedi master

dalecosp

Originally posted by aaron_karp
HOT! I GOT IT TO WORK!

I think it was a problem with the variables I was putting into the HTML code, but now it works!!!

By the way - thanks for all this help. It's 2AM over here in MA....

...and now, it's 2 AM here, so I hope you get some sleep tonight...

Good luck becoming a jedi master

Well, I put that there as a joke when I told some guy to "UTSL"...his screename was "Luke" something or other... I probably ought to change it to something else, it's been that way a month or so...

Have fun with PHP, and, 'you're welcome...'