Excerpt or Full Post on Blog Listing Pages

The standard formatting of our WordPress installation is to display the entire blog post on the listing pages (the main blog page, a category page, etc.) There are a few different ways to change that so only part of the post shows up instead.

Read More Block

When writing your post you can manually set a spot between paragraphs where it will cut off on the listing pages. Insert a new block and select the Read More option. In the editor you will see a dashed line across the screen labeled “Read More.”

On the live site, only the content before the Read More block will show up on the listing pages. This would include any images or other blocks, as well as regular text. The entire post will show up when that post is opened. Do not repeat content above and below the Read More block!

Automatic Summary

You can change the settings on your blog to automatically display only the first 55 words of each post on the listing pages. This summary will not include images, only text.

  1. Hover over the Settings menu in the left pane.
  2. Click Reading.
  3. Within the Reading Settings, find the “For each post in a feed, include” option and select Summary.

Manual Excerpt

With the Reading setting set to summary as noted in the previous instructions you can manually override the automatic summary on any post by entering the desired text in the Excerpt field found in the Post options in the right pane. The excerpt does not have a word limit and will override the automatic summary.