I have a function though other people may say it's not good because I'm still good at PHP too (tips welcome people) but this will give you what you are looking for, it may need better coding if anyone has suggestions.
function Short($text, $length, $url, $more){
$short = mb_substr($text, 0, $length);
if($short != $text) {
$lastspace = strrpos($short, ' ');
$short = substr($short , 0, $lastspace);
if(!$more){
$more = "Read Full Post";
} // end if more is blank
$short .= "...[<a href='$url'>$more</a>]";
} // end if content != short
$short = str_replace("’","'", $short);
$short = stripslashes($short);
$short = nl2br($short);
} // end short function
To Use:
say your article content is the variable $content
function($content, "35", "http://domain.com/article_post", "Read Full Story");
echo $short;
Similarly, you can adjust the function to remove $url and $more from it and just have the excerpt with ... at the end.