WordPress.com Forums » Topic: Trying to change excerpt length

timethief on "Trying to change excerpt length"

timethief — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:09:40 +0000

I don't help with CSS editing. This is what I do know though:

Does the Custom Design upgrade let me edit HTML?
No. The Custom Design upgrade allows you to edit fonts and CSS only. You can change the appearance of a theme, but not its HTML markup, PHP code, or content. ... read the rest here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/#frequently-asked-questions

alfredmacdonald on "Trying to change excerpt length"

alfredmacdonald — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 22:07:35 +0000

Thanks for the reply. That's too time-consuming to do for every single reply. All I want is for the excerpt length to be around 150 words instead of 55, but if this isn't possible I'm just going to have to deal with it. It's extremely frustrating that this isn't something I can edit.

Is it at least possible to enable linebreaks in excerpts, or is that some feature the staff ruled unconstitutional as well?

timethief on "Trying to change excerpt length"

timethief — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:59:09 +0000

I'm sorry to say that what I post below may no longer be possible as Staff have been making changes. However, you could try what we used to be able to do.

On any theme with an active excerpt box below the editor box you can use this workaround to have full posts on the front page. You compose your whole post first and before you publish it you switch to the HTML (Text) editor, copy all the code, paste it into the Excerpt box below the posts editor, and publish the post. http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/excerpts/#creating-excerpts

If you do not see an excerpt box then go to screen options on the top right hand corner of your Admin page and include:
Post – Likes and Shares, Format*, Categories, Tags, Excerpt, Send Trackbacks, Discussion, Comments**, Slug, Author, Revisions, Writing Helper

P.S. On themes that do have an active excerpt function, the workaround works very well but you have to do it on every post you create.

alfredmacdonald on "Trying to change excerpt length"

alfredmacdonald — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:50:47 +0000

I am trying to change the length of excerpts on my blog. Currently it's defaulted to 55 words, but I'd like it to be about 150-200. How do I do this? This seems like a simple issue. I've been Googling this problem for a solid 40 minutes and am quite frustrated by this point.