For example:

When a user goes to http://www.lock.com/pages/ and clicks on the 'locksmith' category, you will find a company 'A-1 Locksmith' with a short description that fits nicely. However, if you go to the main page, http://www.lock.com and search for 'locksmith' - the search results show 'A-1 Locksmith' with over run on the short description text.

I have limited the short description text to fit the table....

any ideas?

Hard to say what's wrong without seeing the template itself, but my guess is that you're using the short description tag on the search result, but the long description tag in the category display. Check that you're using the right tags.

Adrian