When I first started this experiment, the prompt was simple:
“Is there a WordPress plugin that lets me send the current page’s text to any email entered in a form?”
From there, things evolved – quite a lot.
What began as a theoretical idea turned into a fully functional, bilingual plugin that detects the site language, integrates with SMTP, and securely delivers any page’s content to a recipient’s inbox.
This post documents how that happened.
Step 1: The Initial Idea
The original concept was minimalistic:
- Add a single input field to a WordPress page.
- When the visitor enters an email, send the full text of that page to them.
At first, I tried to use Contact Form 7 for this, but soon realized it would require too many hooks and workarounds.
A custom plugin would be cleaner – just one PHP file, one function, no external dependencies.
Step 2: Building the Core Plugin
I started by creating a folder inside wp-content/plugins/:
/wp-content/plugins/email-page-sender/ and added a file named email-page-sender.php.
The first working version looked like this:
<?php
/**
* Plugin Name: Email Page Sender
* Description: Sends the current page content to a user-provided email address.
*/
add_action('the_content', function($content) {
if (is_page()) {
$form = '
<form method="post" class="email-page-sender">
<input type="email" name="eps_email" placeholder="Enter your email" required>
<button type="submit" name="eps_submit">Send</button>
</form>';
return $content . $form;
}
return $content;
});
add_action('template_redirect', function() {
if (isset($_POST['eps_submit']) && isset($_POST['eps_email'])) {
$email = sanitize_email($_POST['eps_email']);
if (is_email($email)) {
global $post;
$subject = 'Page: ' . get_the_title($post->ID);
$body = wpautop(apply_filters('the_content', $post->post_content));
wp_mail($email, $subject, $body);
}
}
});
This minimal version worked – but only under ideal conditions.
If your server didn’t support PHP mail or lacked SMTP configuration, nothing was actually sent.
Step 3: Adding SMTP and Proper Headers
After testing, the first email failed due to Gmail’s DMARC policy:
“Unauthenticated email from gmail.com is not accepted…”
That’s when I integrated WP Mail SMTP and switched the “From” address to my domain (noreply@online-dentist.hu).
The fixed mail section became:
$headers = [ 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8', 'From: Online Dentist <noreply@online-dentist.hu>', 'Reply-To: schulmann.istvan@gmail.com' ]; $sent = wp_mail($email, $subject, $body, $headers);
Now the email passed DMARC and SPF validation perfectly.
The plugin also displayed a small JavaScript alert confirming success or failure.
Step 4: Handling Page Context Correctly
Originally, the plugin hooked into init, but that ran before WordPress loaded the $post object –
resulting in empty emails.
Switching to template_redirect solved this neatly:
add_action('template_redirect', function() {
// email logic here
});
At that point, $post was fully accessible, and the content sent correctly every time.
Step 5: Adding Dual-Language Support
My site has both Hungarian and English sections (URLs like /en/…),
so I wanted the form labels and alerts to match the current language.
To detect the language, I used a simple URL check:
function eps_get_language() {
$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '';
return (strpos($url, '/en/') !== false) ? 'en' : 'hu';
}
Then I used this helper to localize text dynamically:
$lang = eps_get_language();
if ($lang === 'en') {
$label = 'Would you like to receive this page by email?';
$button = 'Send';
} else {
$label = 'Szeretnéd megkapni ezt az oldalt emailben?';
$button = 'Küldés';
}
and finally output the localized form:
<form method="post" class="email-page-sender">
<p><strong><?php echo esc_html($label); ?></strong></p>
<input type="email" name="eps_email" placeholder="Add meg az email címet" required>
<button type="submit" name="eps_submit"><?php echo esc_html($button); ?></button>
</form>
Step 6: Showing Confirmation Alerts
To make it user-friendly, I added success/error messages injected into the footer:
add_action('wp_footer', function() use ($sent, $lang) {
$msg = $sent
? ($lang === 'en' ? '✅ The page content has been sent!' : '✅ Az oldal tartalmát elküldtem!')
: ($lang === 'en' ? '⚠️ Error sending email.' : '⚠️ Hiba történt az email küldése közben.');
echo "<script>alert(" . json_encode($msg) . ");</script>";
});
It’s simple, but surprisingly effective.
What I Learned
- Never rely on PHP’s mail() in production. SMTP authentication is a must, especially when using Gmail or custom domains.
- DMARC and SPF records matter. Without proper DNS setup, even valid emails may bounce or be marked as spam.
- Hook placement in WordPress is critical. init might be too early; template_redirect ensures post data is ready.
- Internationalization doesn’t always need heavy plugins. For simple bilingual sites, even URL-based logic can be lightweight and effective.
Final Thoughts
This started as a quick “can I do this?” experiment – but became a small, elegant plugin that I’ll actually use on my personal introduction pages.
Sometimes the most satisfying builds aren’t the big, complex systems.
They’re the small, human-focused touches – like letting someone you just met receive your page with one click.
And that’s exactly what Email Page Sender does: a tiny but polished detail in the bigger story of how I built IT.
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