VBA & HTMLBody - Spacing between Body and Signature - html

Question

I will be using excel to send emails to my clients requesting certain files from them. I have everything working except for 1 small detail and I do not want to use this until I have that 1 detail figured out.
My email populates almost perfectly, except for the fact that at the end, there is about 3 lines of space between "Regards" and my signature. I'm not sure why this is happening. It shows up like this:
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Regards,
Signature
Does anyone know how to fix it. My code is listed below:
Sub KYC_FATCA()
Dim OutApp As Object
Dim OutMail As Object
Dim cell As Range
Dim signature As String
Dim AccOpen As String
Dim ConDoc As String
Dim SIP As String
Dim AFS As String
Dim W8 As String
Dim LEI As String
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Set OutApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
On Error GoTo cleanup
For Each cell In Columns("G").Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeConstants)
'KYC Account Opening Form
If (Cells(cell.Row, "I").Value) = "No" Then
AccOpen = "<b>KYC Account Opening Form</b> ." & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
AccOpen = ""
End If
'Constating Document
If (Cells(cell.Row, "J").Value) = "No" Then
ConDoc = "<b>Constating Document</b> - ." & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
ConDoc = ""
End If
'Statement of Policy and Guidelines (SIP&G)
If (Cells(cell.Row, "L").Value) = "No" Then
SIP = "<b>Statement of Policy and Guidelines (SIP&G)</b> - " & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
SIP = ""
End If
'Audited Financial Statements (AFS)
If (Cells(cell.Row, "M").Value) = "No" Then
AFS = "<b>Audited Financial Statements (AFS)</b> - ." & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
AFS = ""
End If
'W-8BEN-E Form
If (Cells(cell.Row, "N").Value) = "No" Then
W8 = "<b>W-8BEN-E Form</b> - " & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
W8 = ""
End If
'Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)
If (Cells(cell.Row, "O").Value) = "Needed" Then
LEI = "<b>Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)</b> - " & "<br>" & "<br>"
Else
LEI = ""
End If
If cell.Value Like "?*#?*.?*" And _
(Cells(cell.Row, "H").Value) = "yes" Then
Set OutMail = OutApp.CreateItem(0)
With OutMail
.Display
End With
signature = OutMail.HTMLbody
On Error Resume Next
With OutMail
.To = cell.Text 'Whatever is in cell G
.cc = Cells(cell.Row, "C").Value
'Testing if statements - The below one works perfect
'If LCase(Cells(cell.Row, "Z").Value) = "" Then
' .cc = Cells(cell.Row, "P").Value
'End If
.Subject = Cells(cell.Row, "A").Value & " - " & "Documentation Request" _
.HTMLbody = "<p style='font-family:calibri;font-size:11pt'>" & "Dear " & Cells(cell.Row, "D").Value & ",<br>" & "<br>" & _
"On behalf of " & Cells(cell.Row, "B").Value & ", please by " & "<b><u>" & Cells(cell.Row, "Q").Text & "</b></u>" & "." & "<br>" & "<br>" & _
AccOpen & _
ConDoc & _
SIP & _
AFS & _
W8 & _
LEI & _
"If you have any questions and/or concerns, please contract your Relationship Manager, " & Cells(cell.Row, "B").Value & "." & "<br>" & "<br>" & _
"Thank you for your attention in this matter." & "<br>" & "<br>" & _
"Regards," & "</p>" & _
signature _
'You can add files also like this
If (Cells(cell.Row, "I").Value) = "No" Then
.Attachments.Add ("C:doc")
End If
.Display 'This will open the message itself. If you'd like to send right away, use .Send
End With
On Error GoTo 0
Set OutMail = Nothing
End If
Next cell
cleanup:
Set OutApp = Nothing
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Answer 1

The problem is this line:
signature = OutMail.HTMLbody
This is a clever way to get the signature, but the default email body has a couple blank lines above the signature, and those are getting included when you concatenate the email.
I would visually check signature in a debugger and see what is in there, and remove the stuff you don't want. A simple example might be:
Function RemoveBlankStuff(ByVal text as string) as string
text = text.Replace("<P></P>","") 'Remove any empty paragraphs
text = text.Replace("<BR>","") 'Remove any line breaks
Return text;
End Function
signature = RemoveBlankStuff(OutMail.HTMLBody);
You will need to modify the above function depending on what you find in signature.

Answer 2

I was doing something similar and running into the same issue.
This should work if you replace this portion of code:
With OutMail
.Display
End With
signature = OutMail.HTMLbody
With the following code - it effectively opens, deletes whitespace, and deletes/discards the e-mail created to get the signature:
'gets default signature from e-mail
With OutMail
'2 = HTMLBody
.BodyFormat = 2
.Display
'deletes blank space present before signature
signature = Replace(OutMail.HTMLBody, "<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>", "")
'removes entire e-mail contents and then closes with discard
OutMail.HTMLBody = Replace(OutMail.HTMLBody, OutMail.HTMLBody, "")
OutMail.Close 1
End With
Not sure if it makes a difference, but in .HTMLBody, I also start as -
.HTMLBody = .HTMLBody & "Good Afternoon," & "<br>" & "whateveryourtextis" & "Thanks," & "<br><br>" & signature