matteotrap

WordPress Excerpts should be short, you know.
But when a user writes a lot, you might want to limit the number of characters for the excerpt panel: that’s where the Excerpt Character Limiter plugin comes handy!
It will basically add a character countdown to the panel titlebar, and it will truncate the text when available characters drop to zero. 
Simple but effective!

Excerpt character limiter

It will basically add a character countdown to the panel titlebar, and it will truncate the text when available characters drop to zero.

Johan van der Wijk

The Recent Posts Widget Plus plugin allows you to display a list of the most recent posts from all or a specific category or tag. It not only shows the post title, but also an excerpt of the post.

Excerpt character limiter vs Recent Posts Widget Plus