How to Use WordPress Excerpts for Better Summaries

Ever felt your blog posts look cluttered on your homepage or lack that punchy preview to draw readers in? You’re not alone—many WordPress users wonder how to display just the right snippet of their content.

Understanding how to use WordPress excerpts helps keep your site tidy, boosts readability, and increases clicks to your posts. In this article, you’ll discover exactly what WordPress excerpts are, why they matter, and simple steps to use and customize them effectively.

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What is a WordPress Excerpt?

A WordPress excerpt is a brief summary or snippet of a post or page. Think of it as a teaser – it’s meant to grab your visitors’ attention and invite them to click to read the full content. Excerpts are incredibly useful for blog archives, search results, and widgets because they keep the layout clean while offering relevant information to your readers.

When you use excerpts, your visitors can scroll through more posts quickly. It helps maintain a tidy website look, especially if your content is image-heavy or filled with long-form posts.

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Why Use Excerpts in WordPress?

Excerpts provide several benefits for both site owners and visitors:

• Improved User Experience: Readers can scan through summaries and select which posts interest them, instead of scrolling through lengthy articles.
• Faster Load Times: Shorter snippets can load quicker, particularly important for sites displaying many posts (like blogs or news sites).
• Better Design: Excerpts help maintain a clean design, preventing homepage or category pages from becoming cluttered.
• Boosted SEO: By controlling summaries and avoiding duplicate content, your rankings can sometimes benefit.

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Two Main Ways to Use Excerpts

WordPress allows you to use excerpts in two basic ways:

1. Automatic Excerpts: WordPress automatically generates excerpts by trimming your content to a set number of words (usually 55) if you don’t provide a custom summary.
2. Manual (Custom) Excerpts: You create your own summary in a specific excerpt field for each post or page. This gives you full control over what’s displayed.

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Where are Excerpts Used on a WordPress Site?

Excerpts can show up in different areas of your website, such as:

• Blog or category archive pages (lists of posts)
• Search results
• Widgets (in sidebars or footers)
• RSS feeds
• Custom page templates

By default, WordPress themes often include excerpts in these areas. However, some themes display full content instead, so it’s helpful to know how to customize this (more on this below).

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How to Add Excerpts to Your WordPress Posts

Adding excerpts in WordPress is simple once you know where to look.

Classic Editor

1. Open the post you want to edit.
2. Find the “Excerpt” box below the main content editor. If you don’t see it, click “Screen Options” at the top right and check the “Excerpt” box.
3. Type your custom summary in the box. This field can accept text and sometimes basic HTML (if your theme allows).
4. Update or publish your post.

Block Editor (Gutenberg)

1. Open a post or page in the Block Editor.
2. In the right sidebar, click the “Post” tab (not “Block”).
3. Scroll to the “Excerpt” section. If it’s not visible, make sure your editor settings are updated or toggle its visibility.
4. Enter your summary. As before, keep it concise and engaging.
5. Save or publish your post.

Tips for Writing a Great Excerpt

• Keep it under 25-30 words, or around 150 characters, for best results.
• Be clear and enticing—make readers want to click for more.
• Avoid duplicating your opening paragraph word-for-word—summarize or paraphrase instead.
• Use active language and be direct.
• If relevant, end with a call to action (e.g., “Read more to discover…”).

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How to Display Excerpts Instead of Full Content

If your theme shows full posts instead of summaries, you can often change this:

Via Theme Customizer or Settings

1. Go to “Appearance” > “Customize.”
2. Look for sections like “Blog Settings,” “Content Options,” or “Layout.”
3. Choose “excerpts” or “summary” instead of “full text” for post archives.

Editing Theme Files (Advanced)

If your theme offers no option in Customizer, you can edit the template files:

• Locate the file responsible for displaying posts (often index.php, archive.php, or content.php).
• Find the_content(); and replace it with the_excerpt();.

Note: Always create a child theme or backup before editing theme files, so you don’t lose changes in updates.

Using Plugins

If you want more control, several plugins allow you to manage excerpts, set excerpt lengths, or customize the “Read More…” text.

• Install the plugin of your choice from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
• Configure the settings as desired.
• Some plugins even let you add excerpts to pages and custom post types, not just blog posts.

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How to Add Excerpts to WordPress Pages

By default, WordPress does not display excerpts for pages like it does for posts. However, you can enable excerpts for pages with one of these methods:

1. Enable with a Plugin

Many plugins are available to add the excerpt box to pages, including popular page builder plugins and custom admin tools.

• Install and activate your chosen plugin.
• The “Excerpt” box now appears when editing pages, just as with posts.

2. Enable via Custom Code

If you’re comfortable with code, add one small snippet to your theme’s functions.php file:

function add_excerpts_to_pages() {
    add_post_type_support('page', 'excerpt');
}
add_action('init', 'add_excerpts_to_pages');

Now, you’ll see the excerpt field when editing pages.

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Excerpt Length & “Read More” Text

If you rely on automatic excerpts, WordPress will trim your content to 55 words by default. You might want to change this to suit your site’s design.

Adjusting Excerpt Length

You can alter the excerpt length with a code snippet placed in your theme’s functions.php:

function my_custom_excerpt_length($length) {
    return 30; // Change 30 to your desired number of words
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_custom_excerpt_length');

Customizing the “Read More” Button/Text

By default, excerpts end with [...]. You can change this as well:

function my_custom_excerpt_more($more) {
    return '... Read More';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'my_custom_excerpt_more');

These simple tweaks let you make the excerpts fit your site’s style and tone.

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Benefits of Using Excerpts

Implementing excerpts does more than organize your content. Here are some standout benefits:

• Cleaner Homepage: Prevents the first page from being overwhelmed by full posts.
• Faster Browsing: Visitors can quickly scan and choose which posts to open.

• Less Duplicate Content: Search engines won’t see multiple copies of your full posts on archive or category pages.