email-templates

Email Templates

Create, preview, and send custom email templates for Node.js. Highly configurable and supports automatic inline CSS, stylesheets, embedded images and fonts, and much more! Made for sending beautiful emails with Lad.

Still on v2.x?: v3.x is released (you'll need Node v6.4.0+); see breaking changes below. 2.x branch docs available if necessary.

Table of Contents

• Install
• Preview
• Usage
  • Debugging
  • Basic
  • Attachments
  • Automatic Inline CSS via Stylesheets
  • Render HTML and/or Text
  • Cache Pug Templates
  • Localization
  • Text-Only Email (no HTML)
  • Prefix Subject Lines
  • Custom Text Template
  • Custom Template Engine (e.g. EJS)
  • Custom Default Message Options
  • Custom Rendering (e.g. from a MongoDB database)
• Options
• Plugins
• V3 Breaking Changes
• Tip
• Contributors
• License

Install

By default we recommend pug for your template engine, but you can use any template engine.

npm:

npm install email-templates pug

yarn:

yarn add email-templates pug

Preview

We've added preview-email by default to this package!

This means that (by default) in the development environment (e.g. NODE_ENV=development) your emails will be rendered to the tmp directory for you and automatically opened in the browser.

View the demo

Usage

UPGRADING? If you are upgrading from v2 to v3, see v3 Breaking Changes below. You'll need Node v6.4.0+ now.

Debugging

Environment Flag

If you run into any issues with configuration, files, templates, locals, etc, then you can use the DEBUG environment flag:

DEBUG=email-templates node app.js

This will output to the console all debug statements in our codebase for this package.

Inspect Message

As of v3.6.1 you can now inspect the message passed to nodemailer.sendMail internally.

In the response object from email.send, you have access to res.originalMessage:

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(res => {
    console.log('res.originalMessage', res.originalMessage)
  });
  .catch(console.error);

Basic

You can swap the transport option with a Nodemailer transport configuration object or transport instance. We highly recommend using Postmark for your transport (it's the default in Lad).

If you want to send emails in development or test environments, set options.send to true.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  // uncomment below to send emails in development/test env:
  // send: true
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

The example above assumes you have the following directory structure:

.
├── app.js
└── emails
    └── mars
        ├── html.pug
        └── subject.pug

And the contents of the pug files are:

html.pug:

p Hi #{name},
p Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

subject.pug:

= `Hi ${name}, welcome to Mars`

Attachments

Please reference Nodemailer's attachment documentation for further reference.

If you want to set default attachments sent with every email:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]',
    attachments: [
      {
        filename: 'text1.txt',
        content: 'hello world!'
      }
    ]
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

If you want to set attachments sent individually:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]',
      attachments: [
        {
          filename: 'text1.txt',
          content: 'hello world!'
        }
      ]
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Automatic Inline CSS via Stylesheets

Simply include the path or URL to the stylesheet in your template's <head>:

link(rel="stylesheet", href="/css/app.css", data-inline)

This will look for the file /css/app.css in the build/ folder.

If this asset is in another folder, then you will need to modify the default options when creating an Email instance:

const email = new Email({
  // <https://github.com/Automattic/juice>
  juice: true,
  juiceResources: {
    preserveImportant: true,
    webResources: {
      //
      // this is the relative directory to your CSS/image assets
      // and its default path is `build/`:
      //
      // e.g. if you have the following in the `<head`> of your template:
      // `<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" data-inline="data-inline">`
      // then this assumes that the file `build/style.css` exists
      //
      relativeTo: path.resolve('build')
      //
      // but you might want to change it to something like:
      // relativeTo: path.join(__dirname, '..', 'assets')
      // (so that you can re-use CSS/images that are used in your web-app)
      //
    }
  }
});

Render HTML and/or Text

If you don't need this module to send your email, you can still use it to render HTML and/or text templates.

Simply use the email.render(view, locals) method we expose (it's the same method that email.send uses internally).

If you need to render a specific email template file (e.g. the HTML version):

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();

email
  .render('mars/html', {
    name: 'Elon'
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

The example above assumes you have the following directory structure (note that this example would only render the html.pug file):

.
├── app.js
└── emails
    └── mars
        ├── html.pug
        ├── text.pug
        └── subject.pug

The Promise for email.render resolves with a String (the HTML or text rendered).

If you need to render all available template files for a given email template (e.g. html.pug, text.pug, and subject.pug – you can use email.renderAll (this is the method that email.send uses).

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();

email
  .renderAll('mars', {
    name: 'Elon'
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

If you need to render multiple, specific templates at once (but not all email templates available), then you can use Promise.all in combination with email.render:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();
const locals = { name: 'Elon' };

Promise
  .all([
    email.render('mars/html', locals),
    email.render('mars/text', locals)
  ])
  .then(([ html, text ]) => {
    console.log('html', html);
    console.log('text', text);
  })
  .catch(console.error);

Cache Pug Templates

We strongly suggest to follow this example and pre-cache your templates with cache-pug-templates (if you're using the default Pug template engine).

If you do not do this, then your Pug templates will re-compile and re-cache every time you deploy new code and restart your app.

1. Ensure you have Redis (v4.x+) installed:

   • Mac: brew install redis && brew services start redis

   • Ubuntu:

     sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:chris-lea/redis-server
     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get -y install redis-server
     

2. Install the packages:

   npm:

   npm install cache-pug-templates redis
   

   yarn:

   yarn add cache-pug-templates redis
   

3. Configure it to read and cache your entire email templates directory:

   const path = require('path');
   const cachePugTemplates = require('cache-pug-templates');
   const redis = require('redis');
   const Email = require('email-templates');
   
   const redisClient = redis.createClient();
   const email = new Email({
     message: {
       from: '[e-mail]'
     },
     transport: {
       jsonTransport: true
     }
   });
   
   cachePugTemplates(redisClient, email.config.views.root);
   
   // ...
   

4. For more configuration options see cache-pug-templates.

Localization

All you need to do is simply pass an i18n configuration object as config.i18n (or an empty one as this example shows to use defaults).

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  i18n: {} // <------ HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      locale: 'en', // <------ CUSTOMIZE LOCALE HERE (defaults to `i18n.defaultLocale` - `en`)
      // is your user french?
      // locale: 'fr',
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Then slightly modify your templates to use localization functions.

html.pug:

p= t(`Hi ${name},`)
p= t('Welcome to Mars, the red planet.')

subject.pug:

= t(`Hi ${name}, welcome to Mars`)

Note that if you use Lad, you have a built-in filter called translate:

p: :translate(locale) Hi #{name}
p: :translate(locale) Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

Text-Only Email (no HTML)

If you wish to have only a text-based version of your email you can simply pass the option textOnly: true.

Regardless if you use the htmlToText option or not (see next example), it will still render only a text-based version.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  textOnly: true // <----- HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Prefix Subject Lines

You can pass an option to prefix subject lines with a string, which is super useful for deciphering development / staging / production environment emails.

For example, you could make it so on non-production environments the email is prefixed with a [DEVELOPMENT] Some Subject Line Here.

You could do this manually by passing a message.subject property, however if you are storing your subject lines in templates (e.g. subject.ejs or subject.pug) then it's not as easy.

Simply use the subjectPrefix option and set it to whatever you wish (note you will need to append a trailing space if you wish to have a space after the prefix; see example below):

const Email = require('email-templates');

const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  subjectPrefix: env === 'production' ? false : `[${env.toUpperCase()}] `; // <--- HERE
});

Custom Text Template

By default we use html-to-text to generate a plaintext version and attach it as message.text.

If you'd like to customize the text body, you can pass message.text or create a text template file just like you normally would for html and subject.

You may also set config.htmlToText: false to force the usage of the text template file.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  htmlToText: false // <----- HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: '[e-mail]'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

text.pug:

| Hi #{name},
| Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

Custom Template Engine (e.g. EJS)

1. Install your desired template engine (e.g. EJS)

   npm:

   npm install ejs
   

   yarn:

   yarn add ejs
   

2. Set the extension in options and send an email

   const Email = require('email-templates');
   
   const email = new Email({
     message: {
       from: '[e-mail]'
     },
     transport: {
       jsonTransport: true
     },
     views: {
       options: {
         extension: 'ejs' // <---- HERE
       }
     }
   });
   

Custom Default Message Options

You can configure your Email instance to have default message options, such as a default "From", an unsubscribe header, etc.

For a list of all available message options and fields see the Nodemailer message reference.

Here's an example showing how to set a default custom header and a list unsubscribe header:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: '[e-mail]',
    headers: {
      'X-Some-Custom-Thing': 'Some-Value'
    },
    list: {
      unsubscribe: 'https://niftylettuce.com/unsubscribe'
    }
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

Custom Rendering (e.g. from a MongoDB database)

You can pass a custom config.render function which accepts two arguments view and locals and must return a Promise.

Note that if you specify a custom config.render, you should have it use email.juiceResources before returning the final HTML. The example below shows how to do this.

If you wanted to read a stored EJS template from MongoDB, you could do something like:

const ejs = require('ejs');

const email = new Email({
  // ...
  render: (view, locals) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      // this example assumes that `template` returned
      // is an ejs-based template string
      db.templates.findOne({ view }, (err, template) => {
        if (err) return reject(err);
        if (!template) return reject(new Error('Template not found'));
        let html = ejs.render(template, locals);
        html = await email.juiceResources(html);
        resolve(html);
      });
    });
  }
});

Options

For a list of all available options and defaults view the configuration object.

Plugins

You can use any nodemailer plugin. Simply pass an existing transport instance as config.transport.

You should add the nodemailer-base64-to-s3 plugin to convert base64 inline images to actual images stored on Amazon S3 and Cloudfront.

When doing so (as of v4.0.2+), you will need to adjust your email-templates configuration to pass images: true as such:

const email = new Email({
  // ...
  juiceResources: {
    preserveImportant: true,
    webResources: {
      relativeTo: path.resolve('build'),
      images: true // <--- set this as `true`
    }
  }
});

We also highly recommend to add to your default config.locals the following:

• custom-fonts-in-emails - render any font in emails as an image w/retina support (no more Photoshop or Sketch exports!)
• font-awesome-assets - render any Font Awesome icon as an image in an email w/retina support (no more Photoshop or Sketch exports!)

V3 Breaking Changes

If you are upgrading from v2 or prior to v3, please note that the following breaking API changes occurred:

1. You need to have Node v6.4.0+, we recommend using nvm to manage your Node versions.

2. Instead of calling const newsletter = new EmailTemplate(...args), you now call const email = new Email(options).

   • The arguments you pass to the constructor have changed as well.
   • Previously you'd pass new EmailTemplate(templateDir, options). Now you will need to pass simply one object with a configuration as an argument to the constructor.
   • If your templateDir path is the "emails" folder in the root of your project (basically ./emails folder) then you do not need to pass it at all since it is the default per the configuration object.
   • The previous value for templateDir can be used as such:

   -const newsletter = new EmailTemplate(templateDir);
   +const email = new Email({
   +  views: { root: templateDir }
   +});
   

   • Note that if you are inlining CSS, you should also make sure that the option for juiceResources.webResources.relativeTo is accurate.

3. Instead of calling newsletter.render(locals, callback) you now call email.render(template, locals). The return value of email.render when invoked is a Promise and does not accept a callback function.

   NOTE: email-templates v3 now has an email.send method (see basic usage example) which uses nodemailer; you should now use email.send instead of email.render!

   -newsletter.render({}, (err, result) => {
   -  if (err) return console.error(err);
   -  console.log(result);
   -});
   +email.render(template, {}).then(console.log).catch(console.error);
   

4. Localized template directories are no longer supported. We now support i18n translations out of the box. See Localization for more info.

5. A new method email.send has been added. This allows you to create a Nodemailer transport and send an email template all at once (it calls email.render internally). See the Basic usage documentation above for an example.

6. There are new options options.send and options.preview. Both are Boolean values and configured automatically based off the environment. Take a look at the configuration object.

7. If you wish to send emails in development or test environment (disabled by default), set options.send to true.

Tip

Instead of having to configure this for yourself, you could just use Lad instead.

Contributors

Name	Website
Nick Baugh	http://niftylettuce.com

License

MIT © Nick Baugh