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Sending Inline Images in e-mail with Mail::Sender (or getting them to print in Outlook)

by vroom (His Eminence)
on Mar 03, 2003 at 22:02 UTC ( [id://240171]=perlquestion: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

vroom has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi I'm currently working on sending an HTML e-mail with inline images using Mail::Sender and running into problems. I can get the images to show up fine in Outlook but when I print the messages the images show up as the "not found" x's.

The code below is mostly shamelessly cut from the Mail::Sender docs. Also different clients seem to handle the results very differently. I'm looking for any insight into this particular problem, or best practices for getting this to work in *most* clients.

Thanks,
vroom

use Mail::Sender; my $sender = new Mail::Sender {smtp => 'smtp@blah.com', from => 'emailforyou@blah.com'}; if (ref $sender->OpenMultipart({ from => 'webmaster@ci.grand-rapids.mi.us', to => $to, subject => 'mail message', boundary => 'boundary-test-1', multipart => 'related'})) { $sender->Attach( {description => 'html body', ctype => 'text/html; charset=us-ascii', encoding => '7bit', disposition => 'NONE', file => 'file.html' }); $sender->Attach({ description => 'file1.jpg', ctype => 'image/gif', encoding => 'base64', disposition => "inline; filename=\"file1.jpg\";\r\nContent-ID: <img1>" +, file => 'file1.jpg' }); $sender->Attach({ description => 'logo.gif', ctype => 'image/gif', encoding => 'base64', disposition => "inline; filename=\"logo.gif\";\r\nContent-ID: <img2>", file => 'logo.gif' }); $sender->Close() or die "Close failed! $Mail::Sender::Error\n"; } else { die "Cannot send mail: $Mail::Sender::Error\n"; }

Update:It does in fact appear to be the Outlook Issue referenced in the KB article in bbfu's post below. I ended up using Mime::Lite as jlongino suggested since the code was somewhat more succinct.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Sending Inline Images in e-mail with Mail::Sender (or getting them to print in Outlook)
by jlongino (Parson) on Mar 04, 2003 at 04:04 UTC
    You might want to use MIME::Lite instead. Here is some code (that I also shamelessly lifted from the docs). It viewed and printed correctly using Outlook Express. I liked the module installation and 'feel' of the code better too:
    use strict; use warnings; use MIME::Lite; my $msg = MIME::Lite->new( To =>'someone@somewhere.net', Subject =>'HTML with in-line images!', Type =>'multipart/related' ); $msg->attach(Type => 'text/html', Data => qq{ <body> Here's <i>my</i> image: <img src="cid:myimage.gif"> </body> } ); $msg->attach(Type => 'image/gif', Id => 'myimage.gif', Path => '/some/path/myimage.gif', ); $msg->send();
    Update: It also views/prints correctly under Mozilla 1.2.1

    --Jim

Re: Sending Inline Images in e-mail with Mail::Sender (or getting them to print in Outlook)
by bbfu (Curate) on Mar 04, 2003 at 03:11 UTC

    Well, a couple minor things. Firstly, you didn't include the HTML file you use (file.html), which can make a difference. The problem might lie there. Specifically, with the syntax of the src="cid:img" references.

    Also, you're manually embedding one header (Content-ID) within another. It should work the way you have it, but it is "more correct" to use the content_id parameter to Attach (see code below).

    And though I'm sure it doesn't make any difference to the problem, you're giving the wrong content-type for the jpeg ('image/gif' instead of 'image/jpeg').

    Here is your code, slightly modified and formatted, and the html file I used. It seems to work for me, though I don't actually have Outlook to test it with. As far as I can tell, this is "correct", though, so it should work the same with Outlook as with my email client (PocoMail). If this doesn't work with Outlook, then I can only assume the problem is with Outlook and printing inline images. Perhaps you could try it in another mail client to see if it's an Outlook-specific issue.

    Update: There is a Knowledge Base Article (#287768) about this issue. You should check that to see if it's the same problem.

    The code:

    #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Mail::Sender; my $sender = new Mail::Sender {smtp => 'your-smtp-server', from => 'testing@example.com'}; if (ref $sender->OpenMultipart({ from => 'testing@example.com', to => $to, subject => 'mail message', boundary => 'boundary-test-1', multipart => 'related', })) { print "Attaching body...\n"; $sender->Attach({ description => 'html body', ctype => 'text/html; charset=us-ascii', encoding => '7bit', disposition => 'none', file => 'file.html', }); print "Attaching jpeg...\n"; $sender->Attach({ description => 'file1.jpg', ctype => 'image/jpeg', encoding => 'base64', disposition => 'inline; filename="file1.jpg";', content_id => 'img1', file => 'file1.jpg' }); print "Attaching gif...\n"; $sender->Attach({ description => 'logo.gif', ctype => 'image/gif', encoding => 'base64', disposition => 'inline; filename="logo.gif";', content_id => 'img2', file => 'logo.gif' }); print "Closing / Sending\n"; $sender->Close() or die "Close failed! $Mail::Sender::Error\n"; } else { die "Cannot send mail: $Mail::Sender::Error\n"; }

    The file.html:

    <html> <body> <p>Inline image number 1 (jpeg): <img src="cid:img1"> <p>Inline image number 2 (gif): <img src="cid:img2"> </body> </html>

    bbfu
    Black flowers blossum
    Fearless on my breath

      i was trying the same thing, and typed your code in and i can't get any of the images in the outlook email. they seem to be files, in the body of the email. in ms express they show up fine. is there a setting in Outlook that i should set? thanks in advance!

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