embedding image in html email
I'm trying to send a multipart/related html email with embedded gif images. This email is generated using Oracle PL/SQL. My attempts have failed, with the image showing up as a red X (in Outlook 2007 and yahoo mail)
I've been sending html emails for some time, but my requirements are now to use several gif images in the email. I can store these on one of our web servers and just link to them, but many users email clients will not show them automatically and will need to either change settings or manually download them for each email.
So, my thoughts are to embed the image. My questions are:
- What am I doing wrong here?
- Is the embedding approach the correct one?
- Any other options if I need to use more and more images? Attachments won't work, as the images are typically logos and icons that won't make sense out of the context of the message. Also, some elements of the email are links into an online system, so generating a static PDF and attaching won't work (to my knowledge anyway).
snippet:
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: [email protected]
BCC: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Test
Reply-To: [email protected]
Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="a1b2c3d4e3f2g1"
--a1b2c3d4e3f2g1
content-type: text/html;
<html>
<head><title>My title</title></head>
<body>
<div style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;">
<p><IMG SRC="cid:my_logo" alt="Logo"></p>
... more html here ...
</div></body></html>
--a1b2c3d4e3f2g1
Content-Type: image/gif;
Content-ID:<my_logo>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: inline
[base64 image data here]
--a1b2c3d4e3f2g1--
Many thanks.
BTW: Yes, I have verified that the base64 data is correct, as I can embed the image in the html itself (using same algo use for creating header data) and see image in Firefox/IE.
I should also note that this is NOT for spam, the emails are sent to specific clients who are expecting it daily. The content is data-driven, and not adverts.
Answer
Try to insert it directly, this way you can insert multiple images at various locations in the email.
<img src="data:image/jpg;base64,{{base64-data-string here}}" />
And to make this post usefully for others to: If you don't have a base64-data string, create one easily at: http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp from a image file.
Email source code looks something like this, but i really cant tell you what that boundary thing is for:
To: [email protected]
Subject: ...
Content-Type: multipart/related;
boundary="------------090303020209010600070908"
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------090303020209010600070908
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<img src="cid:part1.06090408.01060107" alt="">
</body>
</html>
--------------090303020209010600070908
Content-Type: image/png;
name="moz-screenshot.png"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: <part1.06090408.01060107>
Content-Disposition: inline;
filename="moz-screenshot.png"
[base64 image data here]
--------------090303020209010600070908--
//EDIT: Oh, i just realize if you insert the first code snippet from my post to write an email with thunderbird, thunderbird automatically changes the html code to look pretty much the same as the second code in my post.