Smart truncate method. It doesn't break words. Add it to rails initializers

truncate.rb

module ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper
  def truncate(text, *args)
    return '' unless text
    text.truncate(*args)
  end
end

class String
  def truncate(*args)
    options = args.extract_options!

    # support either old or Rails 2.2 calling convention:
    unless args.empty?
      options[:length] = args[0] || 30
      options[:omission] = args[1] || "..."
    end
    options.reverse_merge!(:length => 30, :omission => "...")

    chars = self.mb_chars
    omission = options[:omission].mb_chars

    l = options[:length] - omission.length
    if chars.length > options[:length]
      result = chars[/\A.{#{l}}\p{Word}*\;?/mu][/.*[\p{Word}\;]/mu].to_s
      result.replace result[0..l-1] if result.length > l && !result.match(/(\s|\n)/)
      ((options[:avoid_orphans] && result =~ /\A(.*?)\n+\W*\p{Word}*\W*\Z/mu) ? $1 : result) +  omission
    else
      self
    end
  end
end