[rodneyw]

the problem is that I need the FIRST character .. so if a name is 8 characyers long I need to use the FIRST one.

FirstName LastName = F. LastName

here is what I am in the progress of working on that seems to work. It's not pretty but seems to work for the most part

{assign var="count1" value=$customer_info.firstname|count_characters:true}
{math equation="x-y" x=$count1 y=1 assign="count2"}
{if $login ne ""}
value="{$customer_info.firstname|truncate:$count2:"."} {$customer_info.lastname}"
{/if}