Has anyone got a successful way to limit the width of inplaceInput's view mode?

For example, I let the user enter a string, which might be longer than the space allowed for in my form. Currently inplaceInput shows the whole string, which wrecks my display, spilling over into other fields. I don't want to limit the size of the input string because while uncommon there may be valid reason the user may provide a longer string.

I want to clip the user's long string on-screen (not in the backing bean of course) and limit the display width of the input's view.

Any ideas?
Greg