I use following method to make short descriptions from HTML content.
It strips HTML tags and takes specified length from content.
public static string Ellipsis(this string text, int length)
{
string s = Regex.Replace(text, @"\<[^\>]*\>", "");
if (lenght > 3 && lenght < s.Length)
if (lenght - 3 < s.Length)
return s.Substring(0, lenght - 3) + "...";
return s;
}