PHP Email Attachment pdf and docx files don't get sent properly - php

Question

Ok, so while still aware of better solutions, I'm using manual PHP script to send e-mail with an attachment. The only problem I have is that some attachments (PDF, DOCX) are blank when received in an e-mail.
I noticed that when I check $data variable (where the text of the document is stored), in files with extension pdf or docx there are extra characters that are not part of the message in the file. In DOCX file there are some extra characters and in PDF the contents are not displayed at all but some random crap is displayed (encoding?). There should theoretically be a way to attach PDFs and Docx files though.
Not sure how to solve this problem. Would definitely appreciate some help! I'd hate to have to resort to using PHPMailer or SwiftMailer.
Here's my code:
$attachment = $_FILES['uploaded']['tmp_name'];
$att_type = $_FILES['uploaded']['type'];
$att_name = $_FILES['uploaded']['name'];
if (is_uploaded_file($attachment)) {
// Read the file to be attached ('rb' = read binary)
$file = fopen($attachment, 'rb');
$data = fread($file, filesize($attachment));
fclose($file);
// Generate boundary string
$semi_rand = md5(time());
$mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x";
// Add headers for file attachment
$from .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$from .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\"\r\n\r\n";
// Message
$message = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\r\n";
$message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\r\n";
$message .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\r\n\r\n";
$message .= $msg . "\r\n\r\n";
$data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));
// Attachment
$message .= "\r\n--{$mime_boundary}\r\n";
$message .= "Content-Type: {$att_type}; name=\"{$att_name}\"\r\n";
$message .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\r\n";
$message .= "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"{$att_name}\"\r\n\r\n";
$message .= $data . "\r\n";
$message .= "--{$mime_boundary}--\r\n";
} else {
$message = $msg;
}
// Send message
$success = mail($to, $subject, $message, $from);
Is there a way to attach PDF and docx files that I'm missing? Maybe it has something to do with encoding? Or maybe I must read the file differently (if that's the only way). Not sure. Any suggestions?
Edit: .pdf files work now after I added encoding. However .docx files still arrive blank. So the question about docx remains! I edited the code above with the changes I made.
EDIT 2: .docx files work! The file I used to test was incorrect and normal docx file it goes through fine! So problem solved. No need to resort to PHPMailer, although I did try it and it works well. I will either switch to PHPMailer now or use it when I need to add more functionality to the sending mechanism. Otherwise this little script is enough for simple emails with 1 attachment.

Answer 1

Use this, it's much easier, and tested:
http://www.phpclasses.org/package/32-PHP-A-class-for-sending-mime-email-.html

Answer 2

Both files now work fine. PDF files had to have encoding (base64) and after I added that they worked. Docx files always worked, but I used wrong file to test originally. That was causing the problem. So problem solved. There was no need to resort to PHPMailer, however I tried that as well and it works good too.