Broken HTML-Mail because of space character - php

Question

Here is a small snippet of the PHP-Code I use to create a HTML e-mail:
$tmpl = '<table border="0" width="100%";><tr><td>%title%</td></tr><tr><td>%text%</td></tr></table>';
$html = '<table border="0" width="100%";>';
$html .= '<td width="20%" style="padding:0;">';
if(isset($var)) {
$html .= 'Value: '.$object->val;
}
$html .= '</td>';
$html .= '</table>';
$tmpl = str_replace('%text%', $html, $tmpl);
$mail->setBody( $tmpl );
$mail->send();
Sometimes the mail in the HTML view when viewed inside an email program is broken because there is a space character inside an opening TD-Element. Like this:
< td width="20%" style="padding:0;">
Where is this space character coming from?

Answer 1

Had the same issue with php mail() function, my html styling was broken by seemingly random spaces. Using wordwrap() on the message before sending it with mail sorted out the problem.
$message = wordwrap($message, 70);
mail("person#example.com","Some subject",$message);
www.w3schools.com explanation, example

Answer 2

See this line here?
$html = '<table border="0" width="100%";>';
after width="100%" you do not need this symbol -> ;
Try removing it.

Answer 3

Markup has errors
$tmpl = '<table border="0" width="100%";><tr><td>%title%</td></tr><tr><td>%text%</td></tr></table>';
Notice the ; in border="0" width="100%";>
You're not concatenating $html
The following line overwrite the table built up earlier
$html = '</table>';
You need to change that to;
$html .= '</table>';
Suggested actions
I would suggest echoing the body of the mail, and validating it with w3.
Have a read...
Concatenating
Validate your markup
<?php
$tmpl = '
<table border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td>%title%</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>%text%</td>
</tr>
</table>';
$html = '<table border="0" width="100%">';
$html .= '<td width="20%" style="padding:0;">';
if(isset($var)) {
$html .= 'Value: '.$object->val;
}
$html .= '</td>';
$html .= '</table>';
//Debug:
// echo $html;
$tmpl = str_replace('%text%', $html, $tmpl);
$mail->setBody( $tmpl );
$mail->send();