How do I count characters

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi, I am trying to write a script that counts each character (letters, numbers, spaces, line breaks, etc.) in a string. Then, after I have that information, I would like to divide the string up into new, smaller strings. For example, if the initial string $original has 1,553 total characters, I would like string $part1 to have the first 500 characters of $original, $part2 to have the second 500, $part3 to have the third 500 and string $part4 to have the remaining 53 characters (no portion can exceed the 500 character count). If this makes sence to anyone, can anyone please help? Thanks, Tony P.S. If you have any idea on how to make sure the script does not separate words such that one part of the word is in one string and the remaining part is in another, I would really appreciate if you told me how to do it.