HTML email css stripped after replacing text - c#

I have a html template that works when it is as is and sent to my Gmail. The css works and the positioning of elements is fine.
However, I when I load it into my application and do a replace string of certain text and resend it from my application, I noticed that in Gmail, not only is the css gone but all positioning is messed up.
This is my html email as is without replacing the text:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=00874388724644178645
This is how I load the html and replace the text:
HtmlDocument document = new HtmlDocument();
document.Load(#message.Location);
content = document.DocumentNode.OuterHtml;
content = content.Replace("##" + innerItem + "##", line);
var eContent = new HtmlString(content);
I then proceed to sent the eContent string to my email via another function.
This is my html email after I replaced the text:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=03908737686605061545
I am unsure of how else I can handle this email template properly.
I'm using the HTML Agility Pack to read the document in also.
EDIT:
The replaced email works with other email providers like the CPanel one but not Gmail

This might happen if you have any character Gmail doesn't support in styles (may it be inline or in tags). This can include characters like =,*,/,$,%,`, &, #, ^, {, }, [, ], (, ), ?, |, <, > more about that. Feel free to post your code for further help.

Related

Using X-ALT-DESC / Applying HTML to calendar invites in Outlook

I'm a beginner in C# (and any networking code to be honest). I'm trying to send a calendar invite, that will be wired when you click a button on the company's website. This is a typical n-tier system, using asp.net/C# and SQL.
We used to simply generate an ics that the user would then have to know to open with Outlook, but I've since learned how to manually code a VCALENDAR so it shows up right away in Outlook nice and neat.
It's all been going fairly smoothly, but I would now like the body of the calendar invite to be able to accept HTML, to attach links in particular. I've experimented with AlternateViews, but it seems that the "X-ALT-DESC" attribute inside of VCALENDAR should do exactly what I want. However, try as I may Outlook ignores it and uses the description. There is clearly something I am missing.
(To clarify, everything works & compiles, except for the HTML alt description)
private Guid? CreateEmail()
{
Guid eventGuid = Guid.NewGuid();
MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();
msg.IsBodyHtml = true;
msg.From = new MailAddress("fromemail", "From Name");
msg.To.Add(toEmail);
msg.Subject = subject;
StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
s.AppendLine("BEGIN:VCALENDAR");
s.AppendLine("VERSION:2.0");
s.AppendLine("PRODID:-//My Product//Outlook MIMEDIR//EN");
s.AppendLine("METHOD:" + method); //In this case, "REQUEST"
s.AppendLine("STATUS:" + status.status); //"CONFIRMED"
s.AppendLine("BEGIN:VEVENT");
s.AppendLine("UID:" + eventGuid.ToString());
s.AppendLine("PRIORITY" + status.priority); //3
s.AppendLine("X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:" + ShowAs.ToString()); //"BUSY"
s.AppendLine("SEQUENCE:" + UpdateNumber);//0
s.AppendLine("DTSTAMP:" + DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime().ToString());
s.AppendLine("DTSTART:" + DateTimetoCalTime(startTime));
s.AppendLine("DTEND:" + DateTimetoCalTime(endTime));
s.AppendLine("SUMMARY:" + subject);
s.AppendLine("LOCATION: " + location);
s.AppendLine("DESCRIPTION: " + "Plain simple description"
string html_begin = "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">" +
"\n<html>" +
"\n<head>" +
"\n<title></title>" +
"\n</head>" +
"\n<body>" +
"\n<!-- Converted from text/rtf format -->\n\n<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG=\"en-us\">" +
"\n<Font face=\"Times New Roman\"";
body = "I simply <b> want some bold </b> here 555";
string html_end = "</font></span></body>\n</html>";
string html_body = html_begin + body + html_end;
msg.Body = html_body;
s.AppendLine("X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:" + html_body);
msg.Body = html_body;
s.AppendLine("X-ALT_DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:" + html_body);
s.AppendLine("STATUS:" + status.status); //"CONFIRMED"
s.AppendLine("BEGIN:VALARM");
s.AppendLine("TRIGGER:-PT1440M");
s.AppendLine("ACTION:Accept");
s.AppendLine("DESCRIPTION:Reminder");
s.AppendLine("END:VALARM");
s.AppendLine("END:VEVENT");
s.AppendLine(string.Format("ATTENDEE;CN=\"{0}\";RSVP=TRUE:mailto:{1}", msg.To[0].DisplayName, msg.To[0].Address));
s.AppendLine("END:VCALENDAR");
System.Net.Mime.ContentType type = new System.Net.Mime.ContentType("text/calendar");
type.Parameters.Add("method", method);
type.Parameters.Add("name", "meeting.ics");
msg.AlternateViews.Add(AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(s.ToString(), type));
SMTP.send(msg);
return EventGuid;
Produces this body in outlook:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN”>
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Converted from text/rtf format -->
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG=”en-us”>
<Font face=”Times New Roman”I simply <b> want some bold </b> here 555</font></span></body>
</html>
From testing:
If I leave Msg.body out, it just used the "DESCRIPTION".
If I make it equal the HTML, I get the above result.
Thank You!
You can have X-ALT-DESC on multiple lines, you just need to add a space on the beginning of each lines following it.
Lines of text SHOULD NOT be longer than 75 octets, excluding the line break. Long content lines SHOULD be split into a multiple line representations using a line "folding" technique. That is, a long line can be split between any two characters by inserting a CRLF immediately followed by a single linear white-space character (i.e., SPACE or HTAB). Any sequence of CRLF followed immediately by a single linear white-space character is ignored (i.e., removed) when processing the content type.
https://icalendar.org/iCalendar-RFC-5545/3-1-content-lines.html
I found that the HTML string must be all on one line. If the HTML is broken over multiple lines, that does not conform to Vcalendar encoding and the description is either rendered as a blank page or as plain text with all HTML tags visible.
I've seen others out there claiming that the DESCRIPTION tag must be used in front of "X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:". This is totally WRONG and FALSE. If "DESCRIPTION" exists, it takes precedence, the "X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:" line is completely ignored by Outlook and the plain text description is rendered. Therefore, "X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:" must stand on it's own and be on it's own line.
Working example:
...
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:<html><body>Bing</body></html>
...
Wrong:
...
DESCRIPTION;X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:<html><body>Bing</body></html>
...
Wrong again:
...
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:<html>
<body>
Bing
</body>
</html>
...
For those in the future:
The problem was the use of
.AppendLine.
Simply use
.Append
The ics file which i am loading is not created with proper spaces which is longer than 75 octets, if i am manually adding space and loading to Ical.net.Calendar it works fine. But i want to do the same through c# code like manipulating the calendar file before loading to avoid parsing errors.
For reference, here's an explanation from https://icalendar.org/
"The original iCalendar standard allowed only plain text as part of an event description. HTML markup, such as font attributes (bold, underline) and layout (div, table) was not allowed in the text description field. First seen in Microsoft Outlook, the X-ALT-DESC parameter provides a method to add HTML to an event description. "X-" fields are allowed for non-standard, experimental parameters. This field has become the method of choice when including HTML in a description. When using HTML, both fields must be included so that iCalendar readers that do not support the X-ALT-DESC field can still read the text version."
...and it looks like Outlook 2016 dropped support for this. Generating ics files with html description only is most of the time not an option as Thunderbird/Lightening in the past did not handle this leading to calendar invites with empty body.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_outlook/outlook-2016-ics-description-shows-no-html/08d06cba-bfe4-4757-a052-adab64ea75a2?page=1

C# Web scraper copying text

I have a web scraper written in C# for extracting data. I want to copy text from the web browser control and paste it into a Word file programmatically. When I try to extract rich text box content using its ID and InnerText, the text contains encoded characters like %2c.
I need to get the text with all formatting but I can't find any way. I have tried Encoding, HTTPUtility.UrlDecode, SendKeys and elem.InvokeMember() without success.
How can I programmatically copy and paste text from web browser control preserving formatting?
Here is the sample data to extract:
Description
The Advance Concepts Engineering team designs and develops new vehicles which will meet future regulatory requirements and customer competitive requirements. A qualified candidate will be responsible for the total vehicle packaging. The candidate will identify and resolve adaptation and packaging issues as the vehicle moves toward production. They will lead cross functional team meetings working with Systems & Components, Advance Manufacturing, Service, etc. to ensure that the solutions are optimized for all stages of the vehicle's life.
HtmlElement elem = wb.Document.GetElementById("ctl00_contplhDynamic_txtDescrContentHiddenTextarea");
if (elem == null) return;
elem.InvokeMember("Click");
//elem.InvokeMember("Select All");
//elem.InvokeMember("Copy");
SendKeys.SendWait("^a");
SendKeys.SendWait("^c");
Clipboard.Clear();
elem.Focus();
elem.InvokeMember("Right Click");
elem.InvokeMember("Select All");
elem.InvokeMember("Copy");
Clipboard.SetText(elem.InnerText);
string clipbrdText = Clipboard.GetText();
string data = elem.InnerText;
richTextBox1.Text = data;
string temp = System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlDecode(data);
Encoding iso = Encoding.GetEncoding("windows-1252");
Encoding utf8 = Encoding.UTF8;
byte[] utfBytes = utf8.GetBytes(data);
byte[] isoBytes = Encoding.Convert(utf8, iso, utfBytes);
string msg = iso.GetString(isoBytes);
The text with "%2c" etc has been encoded. If you are getting the content of a web page, you are decoding the HTML, not the URL. You can use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode, or if you are using .NET 4.0 or above you can also use WebUtility.HtmlDecode - this is available within the System.Net namespace.
You should note that Word does not use HTML for its formatting, so you won't be able to paste HTML tags and expect it to recognise them. i.e. <strong>Description</strong> will not result in bold text if you type that into Word.
EDIT:
It looks like you are mixing two different ways to copy the text in the code you pasted - both SendKeys.SendWait("^c"); and elem.InvokeMember("Copy");. I presume both of these methods work?
I think the problem you are having lies in the way you are getting the text. I see you're using Clipboard.GetText() to get the text. Try specifying that it is formatted text using Clipboard.GetText(TextDataFormat.Rtf) or Clipboard.GetText(TextDataFormat.Html). This should hopefully copy the string preserving the formatting.

Is Lotus notes email client unable to render <br > tag?

I have a weird problem with Lotus Notes 8.5. In my project I am sending meeting invitation to the user. for that, I generate .ics file. Here is how i generate .ics file
var body = "Dear Raj, \n\n How are you? line break is not working \n\n how?";
using (TextWriter writer = File.CreateText("../test.ics"))
{
writer.WriteLine("BEGIN:VCALENDAR");
writer.WriteLine("PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 11.0 MIMEDIR//EN");
writer.WriteLine("VERSION:2.0");
writer.WriteLine("METHOD:REQUEST");
writer.WriteLine("BEGIN:VEVENT");
writer.WriteLine("ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:participant#company.com");
writer.WriteLine("ORGANIZER;CN="Organizer":MAILTO:organizer#test.ccc");
writer.WriteLine("(DTSTART:20141231T010000Z");
writer.WriteLine("DTEND:20141231T010000Z");
writer.WriteLine("TRANSP:OPAQUE");
writer.WriteLine("SEQUENCE:0");
writer.WriteLine("UID:Company-interview-123");
writer.WriteLine("DTSTAMP:20141223T232322Z");
writer.WriteLine("SUMMARY:Interview Scheduled for Job");
writer.WriteLine("DESCRIPTION:{0}", body.Replace("\n","<br />"));
//Adding below property actually fixed the issue.
writer.WriteLine("X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:{0}", body.Replace("\n","<br />"));
writer.WriteLine("LOCATION:Test Location");
writer.WriteLine("PRIORITY:5");
writer.WriteLine("X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1");
writer.WriteLine("CLASS:PUBLIC");
writer.WriteLine("BEGIN:VALARM");
writer.WriteLine("TRIGGER:-PT15M");
writer.WriteLine("ACTION:DISPLAY");
writer.WriteLine("DESCRIPTION:Reminder");
writer.WriteLine("END:VALARM");
writer.WriteLine("END:VEVENT");
writer.WriteLine("END:VCALENDAR");
}
But Lotus email client is displaying the content as such.
its showing
Dear Raj, <br><br> How are you? line break is not working <br><br> how?
On all other email clients, my content is displaying as
Dear Raj,
How are you? line break is not working
how?
Am i missing something here?
Updated my .ics generation code to add X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html: to fix the issue
I just checked with a vcard that contains your Text in Lotus Notes 8.5 and IBM Notes 9, and it worked exactly as expected. BUT: It worked with your "original" Text without the replace. In the RFC2445 it states, that Line- Breaks have to be encoded as \n:
An intentional formatted text line break MUST only be included in a
"TEXT" property value by representing the line break with the
character sequence of BACKSLASH (US-ASCII decimal 92), followed by a
LATIN SMALL LETTER N (US-ASCII decimal 110) or a LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
N (US-ASCII decimal 78), that is "\n" or "\N".
That means: use
writer.WriteLine("DESCRIPTION:{0}", body);
instead of
writer.WriteLine("DESCRIPTION:{0}", body.Replace("\n","<br>"));
And your problem should be solved
The DESCRIPTION property is not meant to contain any rich text/html content but only plain text.
Lotus Notes may use some other property (X- property) to convey rich text description. Or it may use an ALTREP parameter on the DESCRIPTION, that point to another MIME bodypart in the invitation. See https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5545#section-3.2.1
So what you probably want to do is to send an invitation containing rich text from Lotus Notes to some external account, and then see what the MIME message that you receive looks like.

MailMessage class

I want to add an image into my mail, I have everything working for the most part but my only problem is that in order to have an image I need to set the body to HTML format... which then stops me from having break lines. So I think this is a 2 part question.
Is there a way to have both normal String for the first part of a message body and then the HTML for just the picture? or if not the How can I find and change the break line of a normal String to < br>?
I believe I need to change \n to < br/> in a normal String
body.Replace("\n", "< br/>);
doesn't seem to work...
Try this:
body = body.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "<br />");
the mail format actually is written in the header of the message so its either TEXTformat or HTML format, you cant mix them both in the same message
I am assuming you are using the Mail Libray in .net ? you will need to change your format type from text to HTML with the IsBodyHtml on the mail message
You can just create a html image and use AlternateView to then get the plain text
Sending a mail as both HTML and Plain Text in .net

Plain text to HTML conversion in Outlook email

I am facing a situation to preserve the formatting of plain text email when displaying it as virtual plain text in C sharp. This is done during receiving in Outlook 2007 using VSTO.
The code below does not do the job, instead it converts the body into Times New Roman;Font Size 10 and displays it to the user.
string Text = "<html><body><p style=\"font-family:consolas;font-size:88%;\">" + mailItem.Body+ "</p></body></html>";
mailItem.HTMLBody = Text;
mailItem.HTMLBody = Regex.Replace(mailItem.HTMLBody, "(ASA[a-z][a-z][0-9][0-9])", "$&");
How can I rectify this problem?
EDIT:
Input:
ASAss87
ASAjj98
this is test input
Output:
ASAss87 ASAjj98 this is test input
EDIT 2:
Input:
ASAss87
ASAjj98
this is test input.
Output:
ASAss87
ASAjj98
this is test input.
*Moves one or two spaces forward. I am using tag.
Based on your feedback in the comments, try changing your first line to use Body instead of HTMLBody:
string Text = "<html><body><p style=\"font-family:consolas;font-size:88%;\">" + mailItem.Body+ "</p></body></html>";
Edit: Since the plain text contains line-breaks, maybe you should use a <pre> tag instead of a <p> tag, to prevent it from putting everything on one line.
string Text = "<html><body><pre style=\"font-family:consolas;font-size:88%;\">" + mailItem.Body+ "</pre></body></html>";
Edit2: Alternatively, you can replace all line-breaks with <br> tags.
string Text = "<html><body><p style=\"font-family:consolas;font-size:88%;\">" + mailItem.Body.Replace(Environment.NewLine,"<BR>") + "</p></body></html>";

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