Creates a WordPress excerpt based on the amount of characters you want it to have

get_excerpt.php

<?php

/* = Limit Excerpt
/* Usage: echo get_excerpt(250)
-------------------------------------------------------------- */  
function get_excerpt($limit, $source = null){    
    if($source == "content" ? ($excerpt = get_the_content()) : ($excerpt = get_the_excerpt()));
    $excerpt = preg_replace(" (\[.*?\])",'',$excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_shortcodes($excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
    $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, $limit);
    $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, strripos($excerpt, " "));
    $excerpt = trim(preg_replace( '/\s+/', ' ', $excerpt));
    $excerpt = $excerpt.'...';
    return $excerpt;
}