Sending HTML email from PHP

I am trying to send a simple HTML e-mail from PHP. The code below simply results in a blank e-mail in GMail. It also has an empty attachment called 'noname', which is not at all what I want; though that might just be a symptom of it not working.

The code I am using is:

<?php
//define the receiver of the email
$to = '[email protected]';
//define the subject of the email
$subject = 'Test HTML email';
//create a boundary string. It must be unique
//so we use the MD5 algorithm to generate a random hash
$random_hash = md5(date('r', time()));
//define the headers we want passed. Note that they are separated with \r\n
$headers = "From: [email protected]\r\nReply-To: [email protected]";
//add boundary string and mime type specification
$headers .= "\r\nContent-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=\"PHP-alt-".$random_hash."\"";
//define the body of the message.
ob_start(); //Turn on output buffering
?>
--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello World!!! 
This is simple text email message. 

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<h2>Hello World!</h2>
<p>This is something with <b>HTML</b>formatting.</p>

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>--
<?
//copy current buffer contents into $message variable and delete current output buffer
$message = ob_get_clean();
//send the email
$mail_sent = @mail( $to, $subject, $message, $headers );
//if the message is sent successfully print "Mail sent". Otherwise print "Mail failed" 
echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent" : "Mail failed";

If possible use the PHPMailer class. It will greatly simplify your work.

It turns out the key is the encoding type. Instead of:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I needed to use:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

It might depend on stuff as detailed as how you save the PHP file in your own text editor. I haven't looked into it, but the iconv function in PHP may have brought me some joy too. So I think this part is really sensitive.

Here is a better snippet of sample code that shows the whole thing end-to-end:

$notice_text = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.";
$plain_text = "This is a plain text email.\r\nIt is very cool.";
$html_text = "<html><body>This is an <b style='color:purple'>HTML</b> text email.\r\nIt is very cool.</body></html>";

$semi_rand = md5(time());
$mime_boundary = "==MULTIPART_BOUNDARY_$semi_rand";
$mime_boundary_header = chr(34) . $mime_boundary . chr(34);

$to = "Me <[email protected]>";
$from = "Me.com <[email protected]>";
$subject = "My Email";

$body = "$notice_text

--$mime_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

$plain_text

--$mime_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

$html_text

--$mime_boundary--";

if (@mail($to, $subject, $body,
    "From: " . $from . "\n" .
    "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" .
    "Content-Type: multipart/alternative;\n" .
    "     boundary=" . $mime_boundary_header))
    echo "Email sent successfully.";
else
    echo "Email NOT sent successfully!";

exit;

-Kevin

You have to specify the mime-type within the headers-parameter of the mail-function. Add this:

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

It's also shown in the PHP-Documentation for the mail-function. See example 4

If using a library is not a problem just use Swift Mailer

Sending HTML email from PHP

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