title: Get raw text from markdown'ed text
body: <p>In my DB, I have a text that is markdown'ed. The same way than SO does when showing the excerpts of the questions, I would like to get the N first characters of the text, i.e. all formatting must be removed. Of course the MD -> HTML step must be avoided and the work must be done on the MD'ed text. Performance is a requirement. Thx.</p>