I used the solution posted by Minouris in this post (Javascript truncate HTML text) and adapted it into an AngularJS filter. It seems to work pretty well. The filter is
angular.module('plunker').filter('Truncate', function() {
return function(text, length, end) {
if (text !== undefined) {
if (isNaN(length)) {
length = 20;
}
if (end === undefined) {
end = ".......";
}
if (text.length <= length || text.length - end.length <= length) {
return text;
}
var truncated = text.substring(0, length);
// Remove line breaks and surrounding whitespace
truncated = truncated.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,"").trim();
// If the text ends with an incomplete start tag, trim it off
truncated = truncated.replace(/<(\w*)(?:(?:\s\w+(?:={0,1}(["']{0,1})\w*\2{0,1})))*$/g, '');
// If the text ends with a truncated end tag, fix it.
var truncatedEndTagExpr = /<\/((?:\w*))$/g;
var truncatedEndTagMatch = truncatedEndTagExpr.exec(truncated);
if (truncatedEndTagMatch != null) {
var truncatedEndTag = truncatedEndTagMatch[1];
// Check to see if there's an identifiable tag in the end tag
if (truncatedEndTag.length > 0) {
// If so, find the start tag, and close it
var startTagExpr = new RegExp(
"<(" + truncatedEndTag + "\\w?)(?:(?:\\s\\w+(?:=([\"\'])\\w*\\2)))*>");
var testString = truncated;
var startTagMatch = startTagExpr.exec(testString);
var startTag = null;
while (startTagMatch != null) {
startTag = startTagMatch[1];
testString = testString.replace(startTagExpr, '');
startTagMatch = startTagExpr.exec(testString);
}
if (startTag != null) {
truncated = truncated.replace(truncatedEndTagExpr, '</' + startTag + '>');
}
} else {
// Otherwise, cull off the broken end tag
truncated = truncated.replace(truncatedEndTagExpr, '');
}
}
// Now the tricky part. Reverse the text, and look for opening tags. For each opening tag,
// check to see that he closing tag before it is for that tag. If not, append a closing tag.
var testString = reverseHtml(truncated);
var reverseTagOpenExpr = /<(?:(["'])\w*\1=\w+ )*(\w*)>/;
var tagMatch = reverseTagOpenExpr.exec(testString);
while (tagMatch != null) {
var tag = tagMatch[0];
var tagName = tagMatch[2];
var startPos = tagMatch.index;
var endPos = startPos + tag.length;
var fragment = testString.substring(0, endPos);
// Test to see if an end tag is found in the fragment. If not, append one to the end
// of the truncated HTML, thus closing the last unclosed tag
if (!new RegExp("<" + tagName + "\/>").test(fragment)) {
truncated += '</' + reverseHtml(tagName) + '>';
}
// Get rid of the already tested fragment
testString = testString.replace(fragment, '');
// Get another tag to test
tagMatch = reverseTagOpenExpr.exec(testString);
}
return truncated;
}
}
function reverseHtml(str) {
var ph = String.fromCharCode(206);
var result = str.split('').reverse().join('');
while (result.indexOf('<') > -1) {
result = result.replace('<',ph);
}
while (result.indexOf('>') > -1) {
result = result.replace('>', '<');
}
while (result.indexOf(ph) > -1) {
result = result.replace(ph, '>');
}
return result;
}
});
Working plunkr:
http://plnkr.co/edit/oCwmGyBXB26omocT2q9m?p=preview
I havent tested the above solution and you may run into issues with more complicated HTML strings. May I suggest using a Jquery library like https://github.com/pathable/truncate to be safe?