org-mime.el — org html export for text/html MIME emails

If the org-mode contrib/ directory is in your load path, then

(require 'org-mime)

is sufficient to load org-mime.

Next you need to tell org-mime which Emacs mail agent you use.

• for gnus – this is set by default

  (setq org-mime-library 'mml)
  

• for Wanderlust (WL)

  (setq org-mime-library 'semi)
  

• for VM – not yet supported

  (setq org-mime-library 'vm)
  

org-mime exposes two functions

`org-mime-htmlize'

can be called from within a mail composition buffer to export either the entire buffer or just the active region to html, and embed the results into the buffer as a text/html mime section.

org-mime-htmlize is an interactive Lisp function in `org-mime.el'.

(org-mime-htmlize ARG)

Export a portion of an email body composed using `mml-mode' to
html using `org-mode'.  If called with an active region only
export that region, otherwise export the entire body.

warning: There has been some concern voiced over the potential complexity of email resulting from calling this function on an active region resulting in multiple multipart/alternative sections in the same email. Please see this email thread for a discussion of the potential pitfalls of this approach. Speaking from personal experience this has not been a problem for the author.

`org-mime-org-buffer-htmlize'

can be called from within an Org-mode buffer to export either the whole buffer or the narrowed subtree or active region to HTML, and open a new email buffer including the resulting HTML content as an embedded mime section.

org-mime-org-buffer-htmlize is an interactive Lisp function in
`org-mime.el'.

(org-mime-org-buffer-htmlize)

Export the current org-mode buffer to HTML using
`org-export-as-html' and package the results into an email
handling with appropriate MIME encoding.

The following key bindings are suggested, which bind the C-c M-o key sequence to the appropriate org-mime function in both email and Org-mode buffers.

(add-hook 'message-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (local-set-key "\C-c\M-o" 'org-mime-htmlize)))

(add-hook 'org-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (local-set-key "\C-c\M-o" 'org-mime-org-buffer-htmlize)))

Email clients will often strip all global CSS from email messages. In the case of web-based email readers this is essential in order to protect the CSS of the containing web site. To ensure that your CSS styles are rendered correctly they must be included in the actual body of the elements to which they apply.

The `org-mime-html-hook' allows for the insertion of these important CSS elements into the resulting HTML before mime encoding. The following are some possible uses of this hook.

• for those who use color themes with Dark backgrounds it is useful to set a dark background for all exported code blocks and example regions. This can be accomplished with the following

  (add-hook 'org-mime-html-hook
            (lambda ()
              (org-mime-change-element-style
               "pre" (format "color: %s; background-color: %s; padding: 0.5em;"
                             "#E6E1DC" "#232323"))))
  

• the following can be used to nicely offset block quotes in email bodies

  (add-hook 'org-mime-html-hook
            (lambda ()
              (org-mime-change-element-style
               "blockquote" "border-left: 2px solid gray; padding-left: 4px;")))    
  

For other customization options see the org-mime customization group.