<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" encoding="us-ascii"/>

<xsl:template match="description">
<xsl:variable name="desc">
<xsl:value-of select="."/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:value-of select="substring($desc,0,500)"/> ...
</xsl:template>


</xsl:stylesheet>