How to Apply Formatting to my Table? - html

Question

I'm trying to apply a table formatting to my table when it is emailed out, but cannot seem to figure how to do so. I'm pretty sure the problem is related to how the $html variable is set, or maybe when I try to set $EmailTable to $html with $a as the table formatting. Any help is appreciated!
$ProgramA = "A-1"
$MonikerA = "A-2"
$CountA = "1"
$ProgramB = "B-1"
$MonikerB = "B-2"
$CountB = "2"
$ProgramC = "C-1"
$MonikerC = "C-2"
$CountC = "3"
# Create a DataTable
$table = New-Object system.Data.DataTable "TestTable"
$col1 = New-Object system.Data.DataColumn Program,([string])
$col2 = New-Object system.Data.DataColumn Moniker,([string])
$col3 = New-Object system.Data.DataColumn Cases,([string])
$table.columns.add($col1)
$table.columns.add($col2)
$table.columns.add($col3)
# Add content to the DataTable
$row = $table.NewRow()
$row.Program = $ProgramA
$row.Moniker = $MonikerA
$row.Cases = $CountA
$table.Rows.Add($row)
$row = $table.NewRow()
$row.Program = $ProgramB
$row.Moniker = $MonikerB
$row.Cases = $CountB
$table.Rows.Add($row)
$row = $table.NewRow()
$row.Program = $ProgramC
$row.Moniker = $MonikerC
$row.Cases = $CountC
$table.Rows.Add($row)
$row = $table.NewRow()
# Create an HTML version of the DataTable
$html = "<table><tr><td>Program</td><td>Moniker</td><td>Cases</td></tr>"
foreach ($row in $table.Rows)
{
$html += "<tr><td>" + $row[0] + "</td><td>" + $row[1] + "</td><td>" + $row[2] + "</td></tr>"
}
$html += "</table>"
# Here is the formatting I'm trying to apply (which doesn't work)
$a = "<style>BODY{font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;}"
$a = $a + "BODY{background-color:white;}"
$a = $a + "TABLE{border-width: 1px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;border-collapse: collapse; }"
$a = $a + "TH{border-width: 2px;padding: 7px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;background-color:lightblue;padding-right: 2px;}"
$a = $a + "TD{border-width: 2px;padding: 5px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;background-color:white; padding-right: 2px;}"
$a = $a + "</style>"
$EmailTable = $html ConvertTo-HTML -head $a

Answer 1

$EmailTable = $html ConvertTo-HTML -head $a
This is not how ConvertTo-Html works. Not only is the statement missing a | before ConvertTo-Html, but $html already contains a (manually constructed) HTML table. The purpose of ConvertTo-Html is to do the conversion of a list of objects into an HTML table for you. Change the above to this:
$EmailTable = $table | ConvertTo-Html -Head $a