phpmailerHow can I use PHPMailer to send an HTML message?

Using PHPMailer to send an HTML message is a simple process. The following code example shows how to send an HTML message using PHPMailer:

<?php
  require 'PHPMailerAutoload.php';
  $mail = new PHPMailer;
  $mail->isSMTP();
  $mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
  $mail->SMTPAuth = true;
  $mail->Username = 'username';
  $mail->Password = 'password';
  $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
  $mail->Port = 587;
  $mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'Mailer');
  $mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'Joe User');
  $mail->Subject = 'Here is the HTML message subject';
  $mail->msgHTML("<h1>Here is an HTML message</h1>");
  $mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';
  if (!$mail->send()) {
      echo "Message could not be sent.\n";
      echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
  } else {
      echo "Message has been sent";
  }
?>

Output example

Message has been sent

Code explanation

require 'PHPMailerAutoload.php' - This includes the PHPMailer library.
$mail = new PHPMailer; - This creates a new PHPMailer instance.
$mail->isSMTP(); - This sets the mailer to use SMTP.
$mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com'; - This sets the SMTP host.
$mail->SMTPAuth = true; - This enables SMTP authentication.
$mail->Username = 'username'; - This sets the SMTP username.
$mail->Password = 'password'; - This sets the SMTP password.
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls'; - This sets the SMTP security.
$mail->Port = 587; - This sets the SMTP port.
$mail->setFrom('[email protected]', 'Mailer'); - This sets the From address.
$mail->addAddress('[email protected]', 'Joe User'); - This sets the To address.
$mail->Subject = 'Here is the HTML message subject'; - This sets the subject.
$mail->msgHTML("<h1>Here is an HTML message</h1>"); - This sets the HTML message body.
$mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients'; - This sets the plain text message body.
if (!$mail->send()) { ... } else { ... } - This sends the message and checks for errors.

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