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phppdfpearmpdf

MIME PDF file attachment sent by pear is not opening


Here's my code for generating a PDF on-the-fly by using MPDF and sending it as attachment. I have removed unnecessary code to make things quickly understandable.

<?php
   require_once "Mail.php";
   require_once "Mail/mime.php";
   include 'mpdf/mpdf.php';
   $server = 'my-domain-name';

   $header = file_get_contents($server.'/pdf-header.php);
   $html = file_get_contents($server.'/pdf-data.php);
   //....Some parameters for mPDF constructor
   $mpdf = new mPDF('en-x','A4','','',$marginLeft, $marginRight, $marginTop, $marginBottom, $marginHeader, $marginFooter);
   // *** Set some properties of $mpdf object
   $mpdf->WriteHTML($html); # Write html to pdf
   $content = $mpdf->Output('', 'S'); // Saving pdf to attach to email 
   $content = chunk_split(base64_encode($content));

   # Set $from, $to, $subject and parameters for SMTP Authentication
   $bodyHTML = '<p>Some HTML Body</p>';
   $bodyTXT = 'Plain Text Body for clients not supporting HTML';

   $headers = array ('From' => $from,   'To' => $to,
                     'Reply-To' => $to, 'Subject' => $subject);
   $smtpParams = array ('host' => $host, 'port' => $port,
                        'auth' => true, 'username' => $emailID,
                        'password' => $password);
   $mime = new Mail_mime("\n");
   $mime->setTXTBody($bodyTXT);
   $mime->setHTMLBody($bodyHTML);
   $mime->addAttachment($content, 'application/pdf', 'report.pdf', false, 'base64', 'attachment');
   # Get Mime Body
   $body = $mime->get();
   # Get Mime Headers
   $mimeHeaders = $mime->headers($headers);

   $smtp = Mail::factory('smtp', $smtpParams);
   $mail = $smtp->send($to, $mimeHeaders, $body);
?>

The email is sent successfully to recipient with attachment report.pdf having file size as expected, but the attachment does not open either in any browser not in Adobo Acrobat. The encoding of report.pdf is perhaps wrong.

If I replace-

$content = $mpdf->Output('', 'S'); // Saving pdf to attach to email 
$content = chunk_split(base64_encode($content));

with

$mpdf->Output();

The PDF is output to the browser perfectly, without any errors. That means I am messing-up with something in-

$mime->addAttachment($content, 'application/pdf', 'report.pdf', false, 'base64', 'attachment');

Similar problems have been discussed on StackOverflow but they are for picking up file from the storage and then email it. I have tried that also, but again, the PDF is corrupted.

Could any one please tell me what is wrong with my script?

Thanks in advance


Solution

  • The problem of your code is that you double encode your pdf file. Calling chunk_split and base64_encode is part of Mail_mimes internal work so you don't have to do it. Calling addAttachment with the 'base64' parameter only tells Mail_mime to encode it with base64, not that you have to do this.

    To fix your code, all you have to do is to remove the following line

    $content = chunk_split(base64_encode($content));