Grabbing Content From Another Page Character Limit

Hey guys,

A client of mine wants a pretty bespoke theme creating where it automatically drags content out of different pages and posts it onto the homepage into some div’s.

I’ve knocked up this peice of code

<?php query_posts('page_id=2');
if (have_posts()) : ?>
<div>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php echo the_content('Continue reading ?'); endwhile; ?>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>

Which drags the content out of a certain page and publishes it onto the homepage. However, the div’s are going to be fixed height, therefore they need a character limit after a certain amount of characters.

Is anyone out there that can help me as this would be a huge help!

Thanks, Luke