Use jQuery to Create Excerpts for Text Elements

This is how you can use jQuery to limit characters inside a textarea. It is a function to set the maximum length of characters for any page element. You could use it to create excerpts for posts on your blog for example. See more jQuery .each Examples.

Demo

(function($) { 
	// jQuery function to set a maximum length or characters for a page element it can handle mutiple elements
        $.fn.createExcerpts = function(elems,length,more_txt) {
		$.each($(elems), function() { 
			var item_html = $(this).html(); //
			item_html = item_html.replace(/< /?[^>]+>/gi, ''); //replace html tags
			item_html = jQuery.trim(item_html);  //trim whitespace
			$(this).html(item_html.substring(0,length)+more_txt);  //update the html on page
		});
		return this; //allow jQuery chaining 
	}
})(jQuery);

And this is how you use it:

//example call
$().createExcerpts('.blogpost',280,'...');