mjml

What is mjml?

MJML is a markup language designed to reduce the pain of coding responsive emails. It abstracts away the complexity of responsive design by providing a simple syntax that translates into responsive HTML.

What are mjml's main functionalities?

Responsive Email Design

MJML allows you to create responsive email designs easily. The above code creates a simple responsive email with a 'Hello World' text.

<mjml>
  <mj-body>
    <mj-section>
      <mj-column>
        <mj-text>Hello World</mj-text>
      </mj-column>
    </mj-section>
  </mj-body>
</mjml>

Custom Components

MJML provides a variety of built-in components like buttons, images, and text blocks. The above code demonstrates how to create a button that links to a URL.

<mjml>
  <mj-body>
    <mj-section>
      <mj-column>
        <mj-button href="https://www.example.com">Click Me</mj-button>
      </mj-column>
    </mj-section>
  </mj-body>
</mjml>

Conditional Rendering

MJML supports conditional rendering for different email clients. The above code shows how to include content specifically for Microsoft Outlook.

<mjml>
  <mj-body>
    <mj-raw>
      <!--[if mso]>
      <mj-section>
        <mj-column>
          <mj-text>Microsoft Outlook specific content</mj-text>
        </mj-column>
      </mj-section>
      <![endif]-->
    </mj-raw>
  </mj-body>
</mjml>

Other packages similar to mjml

handlebars

Handlebars is a popular templating engine that can be used to create dynamic HTML content, including emails. Unlike MJML, Handlebars does not provide built-in responsive design features, so you would need to handle the CSS and media queries yourself.

pug

Pug (formerly Jade) is another templating engine that can be used to generate HTML. While it is powerful and flexible, it does not offer the same level of abstraction for responsive email design as MJML does.

nunjucks

Nunjucks is a templating engine inspired by Jinja2. It is highly extensible and can be used to generate HTML for emails. However, like Handlebars and Pug, it does not provide built-in support for responsive email design.

README

MJML 4

| Introduction | Installation | Usage | Contribute |

---

Introduction

MJML is a markup language created by Mailjet and designed to reduce the pain of coding a responsive email. Its semantic syntax makes it easy and straightforward while its rich standard components library fastens your development time and lightens your email codebase. MJML’s open-source engine takes care of translating the MJML you wrote into responsive HTML.

Installation

You can install MJML with NPM to use it with NodeJS or the Command Line Interface. If you're not sure what those are, head over to Usage for other ways to use MJML.

npm install mjml

Usage

Online

Don't want to install anything? Use the free online editor!

Applications and plugins

MJML comes with an ecosystem of tools and plugins, check out:

• The MJML App (MJML is included)
• Visual Studio Code plugin (MJML is included)
• Atom plugin (MJML needs to be installed separately)
• Sublime Text plugin (MJML needs to be installed separately)

For more tools, check the Community page.

Command line interface

Compiles the file and outputs the HTML generated in output.html

mjml input.mjml -o output.html

You can pass optional arguments to the CLI and combine them.

argument	description	default value
mjml -m [input]	Migrates a v3 MJML file to the v4 syntax	NA
mjml [input] -o [output]	Writes the output to [output]	NA
mjml [input] -s	Writes the output to stdout	NA
mjml -w [input]	Watches the changes made to [input] (file or folder)	NA
mjml [input] --config.beautify	Beautifies the output (true or false)	true
mjml [input] --config.minify	Minifies the output (true or false)	false

See mjml-cli documentation for more information about config options.

Inside Node.js

import mjml2html from 'mjml'

/*
  Compile an mjml string
*/
const htmlOutput = mjml2html(`
  <mjml>
    <mj-body>
      <mj-section>
        <mj-column>
          <mj-text>
            Hello World!
          </mj-text>
        </mj-column>
      </mj-section>
    </mj-body>
  </mjml>
`, options)


/*
  Print the responsive HTML generated and MJML errors if any
*/
console.log(htmlOutput)

You can pass optional options as an object to the mjml2html function:

option	unit	description	default value
fonts	object	Default fonts imported in the HTML rendered by MJML	See in index.js
keepComments	boolean	Option to keep comments in the HTML output	true
ignoreIncludes	boolean	Option to ignore mj-includes	false
beautify	boolean	Option to beautify the HTML output	false
minify	boolean	Option to minify the HTML output	false
validationLevel	string	Available values for the validator: 'strict', 'soft', 'skip'	'soft'
filePath	string	Path of file, used for relative paths in mj-includes	'.'
preprocessors	array of functions	Preprocessors applied to the xml before parsing. Input must be xml, not json. Functions must be (xml: string) => string	[]
juicePreserveTags	Preserve some tags when inlining css, see mjml-cli documentation for more info	NA
minifyOptions	Options for html minifier, see mjml-cli documentation for more info	NA
mjmlConfigPath	string	The path or directory of the .mjmlconfig file (for custom components use)	process.cwd()
useMjmlConfigOptions	Allows to use the options attribute from .mjmlconfig file	false

Note that it's also possible to define preprocessors in your mjmlconfig file. For this, you need to use a .mjmlconfig.js file. This js file needs to export an Object with the same structure as a standard JSON .mjmlconfig file.

API

A free-to-use MJML API is available to make it easy to integrate MJML in your application. Head over here to learn more about the API.

MJML Slack

MJML wouldn't be as cool without its amazing community. Head over the Community Slack to meet fellow MJML'ers.