use strict;
use warnings;
use HTML::Truncate;

my $snippet = <<"";
First a technological update - The code that drives this site is available for free on <a href="https://github.com/amacks/vatican_mss">GitHub</a>.  I've just merged in a rather complex change to create proper shelfmark sorting, fixing things like numbers-stored-as-strings and handling roman numerals.  Two problems yet unfixed are Fonds <strong>P.I.O</strong>, with the middle "I" reading as a roman numeral, and <strong>Arch.Cap.S.Pietro</strong> where sub-set "I" is read as roman 1 and everything gets confused.</p>

my $ht = HTML::Truncate->new();
$ht->chars(100);
print $ht->truncate($snippet), $/; 

__END__
First a technological update - The code that drives this site is available for free on <a href="https://github.com/amacks/vatican_mss">GitHub</a>. I've&#8230;

##</code><code>##

<p>First a technological update - The code that drives this site is available for free on <a href="https://github.com/amacks/vatican_mss">GitHub</a>. I've&#8230;</p>