Writing a message in Web Whatsapp does not keep blank lines

[EmilioRoqueta69]

Hi,

I made a flow using this example:

https://youtu.be/MMIvU3OxyWE?si=bJRGYs9vJAfCsb5D

And It works fine, but in my case, the message to send has several lines, with blank lines as separator and when the process types the message in Whatsapp does not keep the space, it replaces the new line for an blank space.

This is the message in the Excel file, as you can see there are ALT+Enter between lines to separate them.

This is the message writing in Web Whatsapp:

As you see, the blank lines were ignored.

I can add {Enter} in the content of the column to force an enter command and it will split the message in several parts, but I want to send the complete content in only one piece, keeping the blank lines.

Is there a solution for this scenario? Can I add something in the Excel cell to fix that?

Thanks for any help!

[Deenuji]

@EmilioRoqueta69 
I don't have an immediate solution for your reported issues, but I've come up with a workaround that addresses your problems. However, this workaround might affect performance as it's not optimized. Therefore, I recommend thoroughly testing the performance it before implementing it in any real-time projects.

Followed Steps:

1. Launch Excel and Open File Under Existing Process:

   • Open Excel and load the specified Excel file under an existing process.
   • Path: C:\\Users\\deenu\\OneDrive\\Documents\\Booking Details.xlsx

2. Read Data from Excel:

   • Read all cells from the opened Excel file and mentioned the first row as a header.
   • Store the range of values in a variable named ExcelData.

3. Launch Edge Browser and Attach to Specified URL:

   • Open Microsoft Edge browser.
   • Attach to the specified URL: https://web.whatsapp.com/.

[In my scenario, I have accessed my web-based WhatsApp, completed the validation process, and it's in a ready-to-use state. then I have attached this instance with my browser]

4. Loop Through Each Row in ExcelData:

• For each row in ExcelData, do the following steps:

  1. Set Message and Phone Number:

     • Set the message to the value in the first column (index 0) of the current row.
     • Set the phone number to the value in the second column (index 1) of the current row.

  2. Construct WhatsApp URL:

     • Construct the WhatsApp URL with the phone number and message.
     • URL format: https://web.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%PhoneNumber%&text=%Message%

  3. Navigate to WhatsApp Web Page:

     • Navigate to the constructed URL using the Edge browser instance.
     • Set a timeout of 60 seconds for the page to load.

  4. Wait for Page Content to Load:

     • Wait until the specified element (Whatsapp send button) appears on the WhatsApp web page.

  5. Press the Send Button:

     • Click on the send button on the WhatsApp web page.
     • Set a timeout of 60 seconds for the page to load.

5. End of Loop.

Excel:

Flow Details:

Output:

Code:

Excel.LaunchExcel.LaunchAndOpenUnderExistingProcess Path: $'''C:\\Users\\deenu\\OneDrive\\Documents\\Booking Details.xlsx''' Visible: True ReadOnly: False Instance=> ExcelInstance
Excel.ReadFromExcel.ReadAllCells Instance: ExcelInstance ReadAsText: False FirstLineIsHeader: True RangeValue=> ExcelData
WebAutomation.LaunchEdge.AttachToEdgeByUrl TabUrl: $'''https://web.whatsapp.com/''' AttachTimeout: 5 BrowserInstance=> Browser
LOOP FOREACH CurrentItem IN ExcelData
    SET Message TO CurrentItem[1]
    SET PhoneNumber TO CurrentItem[0]
    SET URL TO $'''https://web.whatsapp.com/send/?phone=%PhoneNumber%&text=%Message%'''
    WebAutomation.GoToWebPage.GoToWebPage BrowserInstance: Browser Url: URL WaitForPageToLoadTimeout: 60
    WAIT (WebAutomation.WaitForWebPageContent.WebPageToContainElement BrowserInstance: Browser Control: appmask['Web Page \'https://web.whatsapp.com/\'']['Span \'send\' 3'])
    WebAutomation.PressButton.PressButton BrowserInstance: Browser Control: appmask['Web Page \'https://web.whatsapp.com/\'']['Span \'send\' 2'] WaitForPageToLoadTimeout: 60
END

Thanks,
Deenuji Loganathan
🤖Automation Evangelist
Deenuji - Follow me on LinkedIn

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[EmilioRoqueta69 · Accepted solution]

I solved adding {Shift}{Enter} in the text message.

This is the way to add a new line in Web Whatsapp.

Thank you