I want to have full control over the Excerpt

What is an Excerpt?

– Excerpt is a small portion of the total content of posts or pages. In short, it is a summary of the article used to avoid displaying the full content of each post. It helps to display more content on the front page with links to full articles.

How is WordPress Excerpt Generated?

WordPress generated excerpt using the following two methods:

1. Automatic

WordPress automatically generates the except using the first 55 words from the post. 

2. Manual

In this method, you can add the desired text to be displayed for each post as an excerpt. The advantage of this method is you can create your post summary and display it as an excerpt.

How to Enable Manual Excerpt in WordPress Editor

If you are using the Gutenberg editor, the manual excerpt option is turned on by default. However, if you are using the Classic Editor, you will need to enable the option manually.

1. Excerpt in Gutenberg Editor

As mentioned above, the Gutenberg editor, by default, turns the manual excerpt options. You can follow the steps below to add the excerpt in Gutenberg editor:

1. Open an existing post or create a new post.
2. Click on the Settings option from the top-right corner of the post editor.
3. Select the Excerpt option below and click on it to expand.
4. Type the desired excerpt text for your post and publish the site.

2. Excerpt in Classic Editor

You will need to manually turn on the excerpt option while using the Classic editor. You can follow the steps below to enable the excerpt box and add the excerpt in the Classic Editor:

1. Open an existing post or create a new post.

2. Click on the Screen Option from the top-right corner of the post editor.

3. In the slide-down menu that opens, check the box for Excerpt.

4. At the end of the WordPress editor, you will see the new box named Excerpt.

5. Type the desired excerpt text for your post and publish the site.

How do I Benefit?

• You can control the length of post content displayed by the widgets, which can be done in most of our pro themes but not in the free versions.
• You can display text in the widget, which is different from the actual content of the pages/posts.
• You can add <br> tags to have a line break in this Excerpt box which, when added to the content, would have no effect.