How to include html in php mail body

Including HTML in a PHP mail body can be a bit tricky, but there are a few ways to do it. Here are a few methods:

Method 1: Using htmlentities() and nl2br()

You can use the htmlentities() function to convert special characters in your HTML code to their corresponding HTML entities, and the nl2br() function to convert newline characters to <br> tags.

Here's an example:

$htmlBody = '<html><body><p>Hello, <span style="color: red;">world!</span></p></body></html>';
$htmlBody = htmlentities($htmlBody);
$htmlBody = nl2br($htmlBody);

$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0'. "\r\n";
$headers.= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8'. "\r\n";
mail('[email protected]', 'Subject', $htmlBody, $headers);

Method 2: Using a templating engine

You can use a templating engine like Twig or Smarty to render your HTML template and then send the resulting HTML as the email body.

Here's an example using Twig:

$twig = new Twig_Environment(new Twig_Loader_String());
$htmlBody = $twig->render('email_template.html', array('name' => 'John'));
$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0'. "\r\n";
$headers.= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8'. "\r\n";
mail('[email protected]', 'Subject', $htmlBody, $headers);

Method 3: Using a library like PHPMailer

You can use a library like PHPMailer to send emails with HTML bodies. PHPMailer takes care of encoding and formatting the HTML for you.

Here's an example:

require_once 'PHPMailer/PHPMailer.php';
require_once 'PHPMailer/SMTP.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer();
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
$mail->Port = 587;
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = '[email protected]';
$mail->Password = 'your_password';

$mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'Your Name');
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'Recipient Name');

$mail->Subject = 'Subject';
$mail->Body = '<html><body><p>Hello, <span style="color: red;">world!</span></p></body></html>';
$mail->AltBody = 'This is the plain text version of the email';

$mail->send();

Method 4: Using a simple string concatenation

You can also use a simple string concatenation to include HTML in your email body. However, this method is not recommended as it can lead to security vulnerabilities if not properly sanitized.

Here's an example:

$htmlBody = '<html><body><p>Hello, <span style="color: red;">world!</span></p></body></html>';
mail('[email protected]', 'Subject', $htmlBody, 'Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');

Remember to always sanitize and validate any user-input data before including it in your email body to prevent security vulnerabilities.

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How to include html in php mail body