How to restrict character limit by line or # of characters with css?

Question

Is there a css property that can do one of the following? But first, let me explain.

Imagine a masonry layout where each item is width: 200px; and each would be height:

Answer 1

You can try text-overflow, however it has some restrictions, but still might suite you:

Example

<div id="container">
    This is some short content to demonstrate the css-property
    text-overflow
</div>​

#container{
    width:100px;
    height:50px;
    border:1px solid red;
    overflow:hidden;
    text-overflow:ellipsis;
    white-space: nowrap;   
}​

Answer 2

Not characters, but you can set a width of an element in pixels and use text-overflow property which should add "...".

Also, you can limit number of lines by setting height of an element to, for instance, 30px and setting line-height CSS property to 15px and add overflow:hidden. That way you will have exact two lines of text.

.twoLines{
   height:30px;
   line-height:15px;
   overflow:hidden;
}