Thanks for the explanation mike. Yes, undertood your point "tree of
element and text nodes".

I did changed my code and i'm pretty sure the sub-string strips the
subtree elements. 

Basically i tried with copy-of as below in the trimPara template

	<xsl:template name="trimPara">
		<xsl:param name="stringLenRequired"/>
		<xsl:param name="stringInput"/>
<xsl:copy-of select="$stringInput"/> <!-- this copy-of test code
works diplayinng subtree elements like <b>bold</b> etc however the
below code with sub-string fails -->

		<xsl:copy-of
select="substring($stringInput,1,number($stringLenRequired))"/>
		<xsl:copy-of
select="substring-before(concat(substring($stringInput,number($stringLenRequired)+1,number($stringLenRequired)
+20),' ' ),' ')"/> <!-- prev i used value-of -->
		<xsl:if test="string-length($stringInput) >
number($stringLenRequired)">...</xsl:if>
	</xsl:template>

I don't know of any other mechanism equivalent to sub-string. I have
2 q's now based on your reply

1.  On "you could approximate by doing this only one level deep,
which is a fair bit easier" - yes, mine goes only one level deeper.
Pls suggest how could i achieve this

2. On "It needs a recursive walk of the subtree" - My q is even if i
use recursive, how can i avoid using sub-string? pls can you give me
some clue or code sample.

Thanks in advace. 
karl

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