Use HTML formatting in email sent from PHP

Question

How can I send HTML formatting through a PHP script? For some reason, it always shows up as <b>Example</b> instead of Example. I'm sure I have to include HTML headers somewhere, I just don't know what needs to be done. I'm a complete PHP nubcake. :)

Here's my PHP script: (rather long, sorry!)

<?php

if(!$_POST) exit;

        $name     = $_POST['name'];
        $email    = $_POST['email'];
        $phone   = $_POST['phone'];
        $subject  = $_POST['subject'];
        $comments = $_POST['comments'];
        $verify   = $_POST['verify'];

        if(trim($name) == '') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">You must enter your name.</div>';
            exit();
        } else if(trim($name) == 'Name') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">You must enter your name.</div>';
            exit();
        }

        else if(trim($email) == '') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">Please enter a valid email address.</div>';
            exit();
        } else if(trim($email) == 'Email') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">Please enter a valid email address.</div>';
            exit();
        } else if(!isEmail($email)) {
            echo '<div class="error_message">Invalid e-mail address, please try again.</div>';
            exit();
        }

        if(trim($subject) == '') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">Please enter a subject.</div>';
            exit();
        } else if(trim($subject) == 'Subject') {
            echo '<div class="error_message">Please enter a subject.</div>';
            exit();
        }


        if($error == '') {

            if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
                $comments = stripslashes($comments);
            }

         $address = "[email protected]";

         $e_subject = '' . $subject . '.';

         $e_body = "<b>Name:</b> $name \n\n<b>Subject:</b> $subject \n\n<b>Email:</b> $email \n\n<b>Message:</b> $comments";
         $e_content = "";
         $e_reply = "";

         $msg = $e_body . $e_content . $e_reply;

         if(mail($address, $e_subject, $msg, "From: $email\r\nReply-To: $email\r\nReturn-Path: $email\r\n")) {

         echo "<div id='success_page'>";
         echo "<h1>Email Sent Successfully.</h1>";
         echo "<p>Thank you <strong>$name</strong>, your message has been sent!</p>";
         echo "</div>";
         //echo "</fieldset>";

         } else {

         echo 'ERROR!';

         }

    }

function isEmail($email) { // Email address verification, do not edit.

return(preg_match("/^[-_.[:alnum:]]+@((([[:alnum:]]|[[:alnum:]][[:alnum:]-]*[[:alnum:]])\.)+(ad|ae|aero|af|ag|ai|al|am|an|ao|aq|ar|arpa|as|at|au|aw|az|ba|bb|bd|be|bf|bg|bh|bi|biz|bj|bm|bn|bo|br|bs|bt|bv|bw|by|bz|ca|cc|cd|cf|cg|ch|ci|ck|cl|cm|cn|co|com|coop|cr|cs|cu|cv|cx|cy|cz|de|dj|dk|dm|do|dz|ec|edu|ee|eg|eh|er|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fk|fm|fo|fr|ga|gb|gd|ge|gf|gh|gi|gl|gm|gn|gov|gp|gq|gr|gs|gt|gu|gw|gy|hk|hm|hn|hr|ht|hu|id|ie|il|in|info|int|io|iq|ir|is|it|jm|jo|jp|ke|kg|kh|ki|km|kn|kp|kr|kw|ky|kz|la|lb|lc|li|lk|lr|ls|lt|lu|lv|ly|ma|mc|md|mg|mh|mil|mk|ml|mm|mn|mo|mp|mq|mr|ms|mt|mu|museum|mv|mw|mx|my|mz|na|name|nc|ne|net|nf|ng|ni|nl|no|np|nr|nt|nu|nz|om|org|pa|pe|pf|pg|ph|pk|pl|pm|pn|pr|pro|ps|pt|pw|py|qa|re|ro|ru|rw|sa|sb|sc|sd|se|sg|sh|si|sj|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sr|st|su|sv|sy|sz|tc|td|tf|tg|th|tj|tk|tm|tn|to|tp|tr|tt|tv|tw|tz|ua|ug|uk|um|us|uy|uz|va|vc|ve|vg|vi|vn|vu|wf|ws|ye|yt|yu|za|zm|zw)$|(([0-9][0-9]?|[0-1][0-9][0-9]|[2][0-4][0-9]|[2][5][0-5])\.){3}([0-9][0-9]?|[0-1][0-9][0-9]|[2][0-4][0-9]|[2][5][0-5]))$/i",$email));

}
?> 

Answer 1

You need to add a content-type to your $additional_headers parameter:

$headers  = "From: $email\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: $email\r\n";
$headers .= "Return-Path: $email\r\n";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";

if(mail($address, $e_subject, $msg, $headers)) {

My recommendation would be to do as another poster says and use an external sending service or something like Zend_Mail which makes it easy to specify HTML and Plain Text versions (some of us really hate HTML email ;))