Styling e-mail that is sent from a contact form - php

Question

How can I style an e-mail that's sent from a contact form?
I'd like to place it into nice tables with some decent styling. My front-end is just a HTML page that the user fills out a form. The form, upon submit, calls this PHP page to send the data. I have all of that portion working perfectly.
Now, I'd just like to style how the e-mail looks to the person receiving the e-mail since right now it's all just text & data.
My current PHP code is:
<?php
if(isset($_POST['email'])) {
// EDIT THE 2 LINES BELOW AS REQUIRED
$email_to = "email#email.com";
$email_subject = "TEST - NO STYLE JUST DATA- Product Research Request";
function died($error) {
// your error code can go here
echo "We are very sorry, but there were error(s) found with the form you submitted. ";
echo "These errors appear below.<br /><br />";
echo $error."<br /><br />";
echo "Please go back and fix these errors.<br /><br />";
die();
}
// validation expected data exists
if(!isset($_POST['ProductMgr']) ||
!isset($_POST['ProductDesc'])||
!isset($_POST['email'])) {
died('We are sorry, but there appears to be a problem with the form you submitted.');
}
$ProductMgr = $_POST['ProductMgr']; // required
$email_from = $_POST['email']; // required
$ProductDesc = $_POST['ProductDesc']; // required
$ProjLaunchDate = $_POST['ProjLaunchDate']; // required
$ProdCat = $_POST['ProdCat']; // required
$ProdSubCat = $_POST['ProdSubCat']; // required
$SuggVendor = $_POST['SuggVendor']; // required
$VPartNum = $_POST['VPartNum']; // required
$EstLandCost = $_POST['EstLandCost']; // required
$EstRetail = $_POST['EstRetail']; // required
$GMPercent = $_POST['GMPercent']; // required
$GMDollar = $_POST['GMDollar']; // required
$ForeUSales = $_POST['ForeUSales']; // required
$ForeDSales = $_POST['ForeDSales']; // required
$WholesalePot = $_POST['WholesalePot']; // required
$CompProdPrice = $_POST['CompProdPrice']; // required
$CompCompany = $_POST['CompCompany']; // required
$SampleAvail = $_POST['SampleAvail']; // required
$ProdDims = $_POST['ProdDims']; // required
$ProdColors = $_POST['ProdColors']; // required
$EstProdWeight = $_POST['EstProdWeight']; // required
$Features = $_POST['Features']; // required
$AMLBenefits = $_POST['AMLBenefits']; // required
$ProBenefits = $_POST['ProBenefits']; // required
$Restrictions = $_POST['Restrictions']; // required
$GKS = $_POST['GKS'];
$ProdMgr2 = $_POST['ProdMgr2']; // required
$ProdDesc2 = $_POST['ProdDesc2']; // required
$PossVend = $_POST['PossVend']; // required
$ProjReTime = $_POST['ProjReTime']; // required
$EstLandCost2 = $_POST['EstLandCost2']; // required
$ProtoExpDate = $_POST['ProtoExpDate']; // required
$ProdExpDate = $_POST['ProdExpDate']; // required
$error_message = "";
$email_exp = '/^[A-Za-z0-9._%-]+#[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}$/';
if(!preg_match($email_exp,$email_from)) {
$error_message .= 'The Email Address you entered does not appear to be valid.<br />';
}
if(strlen($error_message) > 0) {
died($error_message);
}
$email_message = "Form details below.\n\n";
function clean_string($string) {
$bad = array("content-type","bcc:","to:","cc:","href");
return str_replace($bad,"",$string);
}
$email_message .= "Product Manager: ".clean_string($ProductMgr)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Description: ".clean_string($ProductDesc)."\n";
$email_message .= "Projected Launch Date: ".clean_string($ProjLaunchDate)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Category: ".clean_string($ProdCat)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Subcategory: ".clean_string($ProdSubCat)."\n";
$email_message .= "Suggested Vendor: ".clean_string($SuggVendor)."\n";
$email_message .= "Vendor Part Number: ".clean_string($VPartNum)."\n";
$email_message .= "Estimated Landed Cost: ".clean_string($EstLandCost)."\n";
$email_message .= "Estimated Retail: ".clean_string($EstRetail)."\n";
$email_message .= "Gross Margin %: ".clean_string($GMPercent)."\n";
$email_message .= "Gross Margin $: ".clean_string($GMDollar)."\n";
$email_message .= "Forecasted Unit Sales: ".clean_string($ForeUSales)."\n";
$email_message .= "Forecasted Dollar Sales: ".clean_string($ForeDSales)."\n";
$email_message .= "Wholesale Potential: ".clean_string($WholesalePot)."\n";
$email_message .= "Competition Product & Price: ".clean_string($CompProdPrice)."\n";
$email_message .= "Competitor Company: ".clean_string($CompCompany)."\n";
$email_message .= "Sample Available: ".clean_string($SampleAvail)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Dimensions: ".clean_string($ProdDims)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Colors: ".clean_string($ProdColors)."\n";
$email_message .= "Estimated Product Weight: ".clean_string($EstProdWeight)."\n";
$email_message .= "Features: ".clean_string($Features)."\n";
$email_message .= "Benefits to AML: ".clean_string($AMLBenefits)."\n";
$email_message .= "Benefits to Pro Customers: ".clean_string($ProBenefits)."\n";
$email_message .= "Any Restrictions: ".clean_string($Restrictions)."\n";
$email_message .= "GKS Approval To Go: ".clean_string($GKS)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Manager: ".clean_string($ProdMgr2)."\n";
$email_message .= "Product Description: ".clean_string($ProdDesc2)."\n";
$email_message .= "Possible Vendors: ".clean_string($PossVend)."\n";
$email_message .= "Projected Research Time: ".clean_string($ProjReTime)."\n";
$email_message .= "Estimated Landing Cost: ".clean_string($EstLandCost2)."\n";
$email_message .= "Prototypes Expected Date: ".clean_string($ProtoExpDate)."\n";
$email_message .= "Production Expected Date: ".clean_string($ProdExpDate)."\n";
// create email headers
$headers = 'From: '.$email_from."\r\n".
'Reply-To: '.$email_from."\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
#mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);
}
header("Location: ThankYou.html"); //Redirect to Thank You HTML page after email is sent
?>

Answer 1

The beginning of the body of your message starts with the following line of code:
$email_message = "Form details below.\n\n";
Then the rest of the message is merely adding each value on a new line in the format of "label: $value" beginning with:
$email_message .= "Product Manager: ".clean_string($ProductMgr)."\n";
and ending with
$email_message .= "Production Expected Date: ".clean_string($ProdExpDate)."\n";
Assuming that you want all these in a table you could either add a line before or after the field assignments or prepend/append it to the above statements. A very basic example:
$email_message .="<table>";
$email_message .= "Product Manager: ".clean_string($ProductMgr)."\n";
.
.
.
$email_message .= "Production Expected Date: ".clean_string($ProdExpDate)."\n";
$email_message .= "</table>";
Add the header, rows, and columns as needed to get the layout you want if you wish to go the table route.
Basically you are just adding the html to the $email_message. You might find it easier to get the html working first, then use that as the template for the way you need to concatonate your $email_message strings to get the same result.
Good luck.