Sending forms in MIME format via email

Question

I am trying to send a form via email in MIME format. However, the input tag is displayed as text in square brackets and the button tag is displayed as plain text. ie.

<input type="submit" value="Submit" class="button"/>    =>    [Submit]

<button type="submit">Submit</button>                   =>    Submit

I also tried setting the Content-Type header to "application/javascript" I read on one site that when using MIME format, I should "code like it is 1996". Does anyone know if these features are supported; if so what can I do to make the buttons functional, if not is there a work around?

The emails typically are intended to be opened in Outlook.

Answer 1

HTML support in email varies according to email clients. Here's a good article describing how different clients handle forms: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/674/using-forms-in-email/.

For Outlook the results are

• Outlook Express - displays form, form works
• Outlook 2003 - displays form, form doesn't work
• Outlook 2007 - doesn't even display form

I would abandon forms in your email and find another way of getting the data.