php mailer and html includes with php variables

Question

Hello I am trying to send html emails using php mailer class. The problem is i would like to incllude php variables in my email while using includes as to keep things organized. Heres my php mailer....

 $place = $data['place'];
 $start_time = $data['start_time'];

$mail->IsHTML(true);    // set email format to HTML
$mail->Subject = "You have an event today";
$mail->Body = file_get_contents('../emails/event.html');
$mail->Send(); // send message

my question is, is it possible to have php variables in event.html ? i tried this with no luck (below is event.html)..

<table width='600px' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0'>
<tr><td bgcolor='#eeeeee'><img src='logo.png' /></td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor='#ffffff'  bordercolor='#eeeeee'>
<div style='border:1px solid #eeeeee;font-family:Segoe UI,Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,sans-serif;padding:20px 10px;'>
<p style=''>This email is to remind you that you have an upcoming meeting at $place on $start_time.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
</div>
</td></tr>
</table>

Answer 1

Couple ways to do it:

Token Template

<p> Some cool text %var1%,, %var2%,etc...</p>

Token Mailer

$mail->Body = strtr(file_get_contents('path/to/template.html'), array('%var1%' => 'Value 1', '%var2%' => 'Value 2'));

Buffer Template

<p> Some cool text $var1,, $var2,etc...</p>

Buffer Mailer

$var1 = 'Value 1';
$var2 = 'Value 2';
ob_start();
include('path/to/template.php');
$content = ob_get_clean();
$mail->Body = $content;