Sending HTML Email Using PHP

The next step is to examine how to send HTML email. However, some mail clients cannot understand HTML emails. Therefore it is best to send any HTML email using a multipart construction, where one part contains a plain-text version of the email and the other part is HTML. If your customers have HTML email turned off, they will still get a nice email, even if they don't get all of the HTML markup.

Have a look at the example:

<?php

//define the receiver of the email

$to = 'youraddress@example.com';

//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: webmaster@example.com\r\nReply-To: webmaster@example.com";

//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; ?>  

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; ?>  

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";

?>

In the preceding example we add one additional header of Content-type:multipart/alternative and boundary string that marks the different areas of the email. Note that the content type of the message itself is sent as a mail header, while the content types of the individual parts of the message are embedded in the message itself. This way, mail clients can decide which part of the message they want to display.