How can I attach a file to an email from a url?

Question

I'm sending an email using the cfmail tag, and trying to attach a PDF file from a URL:

<cfmail to="me@mydomain.com" from="you@yourdomain.com" subject="Subject" type="html">
   <cfmailparam file="http://myfilelocation/pdfFile.pdf">
   Body of the email
</cfmail>

However, this is not working. Without the cfmailparam tag, the email sends successfully. If I go to http://myfilelocation/pdffile.pdf, I see the PDF document that I'm trying to attach. Am I doing something wrong? How can I attach a PDF document to an email from a URL?

If you sending an HTML email, why not just link to the PDF directly? — Paul Perigny, Jul 11 '11 at 15:28
@Paul Perigny - brilliant idea :) Don't know why we didn't think of that. Just ran the idea past my boss and it was approved :) Thanks! (If you post it as an answer I can accept it) — froadie, Jul 12 '11 at 07:55

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 12 '11 at 14:09

3

If your are send HTML email, why not just link to the PDF directly? This makes for smaller emails and gives you a chance to update the PDF even after it is sent out.

answered Jul 12 '11 at 14:09

Paul Perigny

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 11 '11 at 13:29

2

The cfmailparam file should point to a location on your server. This file is then attached to the email:

<cfmail to="me@mydomain.com" from="you@yourdomain.com" subject="Subject" type="html">
<cfmailparam file="d:\websites\mysite\resources\pdf1.pdf">
   Body of the email
</cfmail>

answered Jul 11 '11 at 13:29

Antony

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There's no way to do it from a url? – froadie Jul 11 '11 at 13:32
@froadie what problem are you trying to avoid? is the pdf on your server or somewhere else? – Antony Jul 11 '11 at 23:14
you can use @larzuk's answer to download the file to your own server and then follow my answer above, or simply include a link to the pdf wherever it is – Antony Jul 12 '11 at 09:24
that's the error. I'm including the link to wherever it is and it's not working. – froadie Jul 12 '11 at 11:36
@froadie no use an ` – Antony Jul 12 '11 at 23:10

LarZuK · Answer 3 · 2011-07-21T21:40:48.440

1

You can use CFHTTP to retrieve your file to your server and getTempFile() || getTempDirectory() to temporary stock this file and finally use CFMAILPARAM to attach this file.

Edit:

<cfset tempFile = getTempDirectory(getTempFile()) />
<cfhttp url="http://myfilelocation/pdfFile.pdf" method="get" file="#tempFile#"></cfhttp>

<cfmail to="me@mydomain.com" from="you@yourdomain.com" subject="Subject" type="html">
   <cfmailparam file="#tempFile#">
   Body of the email
</cfmail>

Not tested

edited Jul 21 '11 at 21:40

answered Jul 11 '11 at 14:57

LarZuK

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should be – Micah Nov 22 '11 at 00:11

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 06 '17 at 13:29

Your code will work fine for text files only. For other files we need conversion of data. See below:

<cfhttp method="get" url="http://myfilelocation/pdfFile.pdf">
<!---conversion--->
<cfif IsSimpleValue(cfhttp.Filecontent)>
    <cfset content = cfhttp.Filecontent>
<cfelse>
    <cfset content = cfhttp.Filecontent.toByteArray()>
</cfif>

And cfmailparam like:

<cfmailparam file="#fileNameOfYourChoice#" type="#cfhttp.Mimetype#" content="#content#" />

This works with special URLs(eg: http://myfilelocation/pdfFile.pdf?querystring=1 or http://myfilelocation/notPdfFileName/) and also allow us to name the file as we need

How can I attach a file to an email from a url?

4 Answers4