I think you want "substr" (see "perldoc -f substr"): 
my $maxlen = 20;  # could be 255 if you like
my $memo = "This is a really long string and I only need to show the f
+irst $maxlen characters...";

print substr( $memo, 0, $maxlen ), "\n";

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In reply to Re: Display shortened paragraph by graff
in thread Display shortened paragraph by Anonymous Monk

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