Export formatted bullets to an email from Excel TextBox - html

Question

I've been working on a spread sheet to allow my team to manage our workload more effectively, whilst the business is developing a new tool. Anyway, what the sheet does is inject information, then at the click of a button, it populates an OFT email template so that the info can be sent out.
Problem is, we rely heavily on bullet lists for our emails, and I'm really struggling to find a way of adding bullets effectively from an ActiveX Textbox.
At the moment, I have a button which adds the follow to a text box:
[bullets]
* Bullet 1
* Bullet 2
* Bullet 3
[/bullets]
I then have Replace statements that look for strings and it replaces them with the appropriate HTML tags. Here's the code:
' Add HTML formatting to text updates so it displays correctly in the email.
LatestUpdate.Text = Replace(LatestUpdate, "[bullets]", "<ul>")
LatestUpdate.Text = Replace(LatestUpdate, "[/bullets]", "</ul>")
LatestUpdate.Text = Replace(LatestUpdate, "* ", "<li>")
LatestUpdate.Text = Replace(LatestUpdate, vbCrLf, "<br>")
The problem I'm having, is that non-technical people are using this document, so I would really like to have it in such a way were they don't have to look at the markup, but can simple add bullets straight from the textbox.
I was originally thinking about replacing "* " with "< li >" however, that doesn't add the correct < ul > tags, so it's not actually a bullet list within the email.
Can anyone help in simplifying this process for the end users please? I'm really stuck.
The holy grail would be to enable rich text formatting on the textbox, but I don't believe that's possible from all the research I've done?
TIA.

Answer 1

Based on your last comment, what you are looking for is not just a bullet point in your textbox but indentation as well. So here is an attempt at it:
First add the below in your <textbox>_KeyUp function:
Private Sub txtBulletPoints_KeyUp(ByVal KeyCode As MSForms.ReturnInteger, ByVal Shift As Integer)
Dim STRING_LENGTH As Long: STRING_LENGTH = 49
Dim aLine() As String
Dim aLineSpace() As String
Dim iC As Integer
Dim sText As String
Dim bUpdate As Boolean
' Only do this if there is a string to work with
If Len(Me.txtBulletPoints.Text) > 0 Then
' Set initial values
aLine = Split(Me.txtBulletPoints.Text, vbCrLf)
bUpdate = False
' First lets indent the last line if we need to
If Left(aLine(UBound(aLine)), 2) = "- " Then
For iC = LBound(aLine) To UBound(aLine)
If iC = UBound(aLine) Then
sText = sText & vbTab & aLine(iC)
Else
sText = sText & aLine(iC) & vbCrLf
End If
Next
Me.txtBulletPoints.Text = sText
End If
' Now the tricky bit. Check if we have reached the end of the
' line so that we can indent the text into the next line
If (Len(aLine(UBound(aLine))) >= STRING_LENGTH) And (InStr(1, aLine(UBound(aLine)), vbTab) = 1) Then
For iC = LBound(aLine) To UBound(aLine)
If iC = UBound(aLine) Then
aLineSpace = Split(aLine(iC), " ")
' As we have to indent the last bullet point line, call the finction to do that
sText = sText & SetIndentsInString(aLine(iC), STRING_LENGTH)
Else
sText = sText & aLine(iC) & vbCrLf
End If
Next
Me.txtBulletPoints.Text = sText
End If
End If
End Sub
Now add the below UDF where your form code is (essentially at the same place where your <textbox>_KeyUp function is):
Function SetIndentsInString(ByVal sString As String, ByVal iIndentLen As Long) As String
Dim iC As Long
Dim iLastTab As Long: iLastTab = 0
Dim aSpace() As String
Dim aTab() As String
Dim sCurString As String
' Check if the string is the same as what it was last
' time (sLastString is a private module variable initialised
' to "" when the form is activated)
If Replace(sString, vbTab, "") = Replace(sLastString, vbTab, "") Then
' Its the same string so lets return it as is
SetIndentsInString = sString
Else
' Its not the same string so set initial values
sLastString = sString
SetIndentsInString = ""
' Loop to see how many lines we have based on number of TABs in the string
Do While InStr(iLastTab + 1, sString, vbTab) > 0
iLastTab = iLastTab + InStr(iLastTab + 1, sString, vbTab)
Loop
' If there is only 1 TAB, simply indent the line
If iLastTab = 1 Then
aSpace = Split(sString, " ")
SetIndentsInString = Mid(sString, 1, Len(sString) - Len(aSpace(UBound(aSpace)))) & vbTab & " " & aSpace(UBound(aSpace))
Else
' More then 1 TAB.. damn!. Ok well lets work it
aTab = Split(sString, vbTab)
sCurString = aTab(UBound(aTab))
' Check if the last line of our bullet point has more characters then allowed in a line
If Len(sCurString) >= iIndentLen Then
' It does. Now loop through all the lines in our bullet point and set the last character in a new line with indent
aSpace = Split(sCurString, " ")
For iC = LBound(aTab) To UBound(aTab)
If iC = UBound(aTab) Then
SetIndentsInString = SetIndentsInString & Mid(sCurString, 1, Len(sCurString) - Len(aSpace(UBound(aSpace)))) & vbTab & " " & aSpace(UBound(aSpace))
Else
SetIndentsInString = SetIndentsInString & aTab(iC) & vbTab
End If
Next
Else
' It doesnt. Loop through and send the string back
SetIndentsInString = sString
End If
End If
End If
End Function
Now in the same module, make the following declaration at the top:
Private sLastString As String
Essentially the above will act like a bullet point as it would be in a Rich Text box. Things to remember is that you will have to set STRING_LENGTH to the number of characters your textbox will take in a given bullet point line (you will have to play around with that). Below is a screen print of how it worked for me