Send a Form-Letter Invoice Email with an Optional Personal Message

A very realistic use of vuMailKit is to send a branded email that looks like a company letter with invoice details below it.

The easiest way to do that is to separate the email into layers:

a branded outer HTML frame
fixed form-letter wording in the template
simple token values such as customer name and service date
an optional personal-message area
a generated invoice body inserted from another file

This gives you a polished result without hard-coding the whole email inside Clarion.

A useful source for the generated invoice body is a normal Clarion report set to output text. Generate the invoice lines to a text file, merge that file into the email template, and send the merged output file as the email body.

Example template

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
</head>
<body>
  <div style="text-align:center;">
    <img src="CompanyLogo.gif" alt="Company Logo">
  </div>

  <p>Dear [[CustomerName]],</p>

  <p>
    Here is your invoice for services performed on [[ServiceDate]].
    Thank you for your business.
  </p>

  [[PersonalMessage]]

  <hr>

  [[InvoiceBody]]

  <hr>

  <p>Please remit payment at your earliest convenience.</p>
  <p>Company Name<br>
  Address<br>
  Phone</p>
</body>
</html>

How the pieces fit together

Fixed template content

The outer template holds:

logo and letterhead look
standard wording
footer and contact details

Simple token replacement

Use normal token merge for values such as:

[[CustomerName]]
[[ServiceDate]]
[[PersonalMessage]]

File-content insertion

Use TokenMergeFileIntoFile when the invoice or statement body is already generated into another file.

That replacement file can be:

plain text, optionally converted to <br> tags with contentFlags = 1
an HTML fragment inserted unchanged with contentFlags = 0

It should normally not be a full second HTML document.

Typical staged workflow

Start with the branded HTML template
Replace the simple tokens such as customer name and service date
Optionally replace [[PersonalMessage]] with a short custom note or with a blank string
Use TokenMergeFileIntoFile to replace [[InvoiceBody]] with the contents of the generated invoice file
Send the final merged file with vuSendMail or vuSendMailWait

Example (Clarion)

TemplateFile     CSTRING(260)
Stage1File       CSTRING(260)
Stage2File       CSTRING(260)
FinalFile        CSTRING(260)
ReplacementFile  CSTRING(260)
TokenText        CSTRING(80)
ValueText        CSTRING(1024)
Result           LONG

TemplateFile    = CLIP(PATH()) & '\InvoiceEmailFrame.html'
Stage1File      = CLIP(PATH()) & '\InvoiceStage1.html'
Stage2File      = CLIP(PATH()) & '\InvoiceStage2.html'
FinalFile       = CLIP(PATH()) & '\InvoiceFinal.html'
ReplacementFile = CLIP(PATH()) & '\InvoiceBody.txt'

TokenText = '[[CustomerName]]'
ValueText = 'Joe Blow'
Result = TokenMergeInFile(TemplateFile, Stage1File, TokenText, ValueText, 0)

TokenText = '[[ServiceDate]]'
ValueText = '2026-04-27'
Result = TokenMergeInFile(Stage1File, Stage2File, TokenText, ValueText, 0)

TokenText = '[[PersonalMessage]]'
ValueText = '<p>Please call if you have any questions about this invoice.</p>'
Result = TokenMergeInFile(Stage2File, FinalFile, TokenText, ValueText, 0)

TokenText = '[[InvoiceBody]]'
Result = TokenMergeFileIntoFile(FinalFile, FinalFile & '.tmp', TokenText, |
                            ReplacementFile, 0, 1)

! Use 1 for plain text invoice output.
! Use 0 if InvoiceBody.txt already contains HTML.

cBody = FinalFile & '.tmp'
Result = vuSendMailWait(cFrom, cTo, cCC, cBCC, cSubject, cBody, cAttach)