This is an easy way to truncate strings without cutting words after n characters.

bad one:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, hy…

good one:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, hymenaeos …

$string = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, pellentesque wisi ut congue eget quam.";
$strLength = 30;
echo substr ( $string, 0, strrpos ( $string, ' ', - ( strlen ( $string ) - $strLength ) ) );