SmtpClient sending raw Html

Question

Could anyone tell me why the following code is sending out emails in raw Html? As in, the email looks like when you view a page source.

I have cut down the code so as not to include attachments and from addresses.

If I disable the line with the alternate view the email renders correctly but I also want to send out a plain text version.

using (SmtpClient client = GetSmtpClient(settings)) {
    using (MailMessage message = new MailMessage()) {
        message.IsBodyHtml = true;
        message.BodyEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("iso-8859-1");
        message.To.Add(toList);
        message.Subject = subject;
        message.Body = htmlTemplate;
        message.AlternateViews.Add(AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(textTemplate, new ContentType("text/plain")));
        client.Send(message);
     }
}

Edit: The message was originally sending text as the main body and html as the alternative view but I have run into a problem with accented and foreign characters as described here and wanted to set IsBodyHtml to true, which forces me to set html to the main view.

Have you tried setting the message body to the text version, and then having HTML as the alternate view? — Justin Harvey, Nov 08 '12 at 11:15

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '12 at 11:26

I had problems with this also but here's a very much cutdown version of code that worked for me...

   private MailMessage CreateEmailMessage(string emailAddress) {

        MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();

        msg.From = new MailAddress(FromEmailAddress, FromName);
        msg.To.Add(new MailAddress(emailAddress));
        msg.Subject = "Msg Subject here";

        string textBody = File.ReadAllText(TextTemplateFile);


        string htmlBody = "";
        if (EmailFormat == "html") {
            htmlBody = File.ReadAllText(HtmlTemplateFile);

            foreach (Attachment inline in InlineAttachments) {
                inline.ContentDisposition.Inline = true;
                msg.Attachments.Add(inline);
            }

            AlternateView alternateHtml = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(htmlBody,
                                                                                      new ContentType("text/html"));
            msg.AlternateViews.Add(alternateHtml);

            AlternateView alternateText = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(textBody,
                                                                                      new ContentType("text/plain"));
            msg.AlternateViews.Add(alternateText);

        }
        else {
            msg.Body = textBody;
        }

        return msg;
    }

Assuming you only want the `EmailFormat=="html"` option, might this also resolve your problem with accented characters? — Vicki, Nov 08 '12 at 11:42

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 08 '12 at 14:22

In the end I realised that the 'htmlTemplate' string being passed into the method was defining charset=ISO-8859-1 in the head of the email and therefore overriding any changes I was making in the code.

I changed the charset to UTF-8, and restored my code to this:

using (SmtpClient client = GetSmtpClient(settings)) {
  using (MailMessage message = new MailMessage()) {
    message.To.Add(toList);
    message.Subject = subject;
    message.Body = textTemplate;          
    message.AlternateViews.Add(AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(htmlTemplate, new ContentType("text/html")));
    client.Send(message);
  }
}

and can now send both text and html templates as well as cover the accented characters problem.

SmtpClient sending raw Html

2 Answers2