Content-Type: text/html

Email Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Content-Type: text/html - HTML Content

This section provides an email message example with 'Content-Type: text/html' header for HTML formatted message content.

What Is "Content-Type: text/html" Email Header? "Content-Type: text/html" specifies that the email message content is an HTML formatted document. It tells the email client tool to render the content into a formatted Web page.

"text/html" and other "Content-Type" values are defined in "RFC1341 - MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions): Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies" at datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1341.

If "Content-Type" header is not provided, the default of "Content-Type: text/plain" is assumed. In this case, the message content contains text without any formatting.

The default of "Content-Type: text/plain" is good enough, if you just want to send a short greeting message to your friend.

If you want to send nice looking wedding invitation, you can create the invitation as an HTML document and send it with the "Content-Type: text/html" header. Here is a simple example:

Message-Id: <20231113111946.5EABD266002B@mail.herongyang.com>
Date: 15 Nov 2023 06:19:34 -0500 (EST)
From: chloe@herongyang.com
Content-Type: text/html

<p style="text-align: center">
<span style="font-family: 'Dancing Script'; font-size: 4em">Chloe
<span style="font-size: 0.5em">&</span> Oliver</span><br/>
<br/>
<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 1em">
INVITE YOU TO CELEBRATE THEIR WEDDING DAY<br/>
<br/>
<span style="font-size: 2em">JULY 7, 2027</span></span>
<p>

When an email client tool receives a message with "Content-Type: text/html", it will render the message content like a Web page based on embedded HTML tags. Text paragraphs can be styled. References can become clickable links. Data elements can be organized into tables. Images and videos can be embedded directly.