This is a great question. Unfortunately, Velocity documentation isn't the best, here's what I've found: http://velocitycoder.com/string-substring-and-index-of/ #set ( $index = $notification.message.body.indexOf('</p>', 0) ) Have you tried using indexOf with a string value you know exists in the message? Might be good to check if the function is working correctly We plan to implement this at some point but haven't done any work. One consideration was using CSS max-height with some kind of fade mask effect. Support for max-height is a bit spotty though: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/box-model/max-height/ Good luck, please share updates if you find a good solution