phpmailer html email problem

Answer 1

First off, add some quotes around your styles:

$body .= "<table style=\"width: 800px; height: 600px;background-image: url('http://www.myserver.net/image/temp1.jpg');background-repeat:no-repeat\"&gt;

<tr><td><table style=\"width: 100%\">";

Answer 2

Gmail strips out background images. Unfortunately, with HTML e-mail, you're really limited in what you can do with CSS.

See this article for more info: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/designers-guide-html-email