Displaying first 100 characters of an article

Hi~ I'm pulling data out of a MySQL db and displaying it on a web page... the data is like a news article with a title and a body. Currently, I can display the title and I have it linked to a javascript pop-up window that displays the full article. I would like to add the first 100 characters of the article under the title as well... something like follows: Version 6.0 just Released We've worked hard to bring you a new and improved version 6.0 software package so that you.... Is there a way to make those words under the title appear and only display the first 100 characters followed by a "..."? Thanks, -Ben