The subject of WordPress Excerpts or Teasers come up a lot in the form of questions people post in most forums. I figure I’d try and shed a little light on the topic, as best I can. Usually confused to be the same, they are actually 2 different functions in WordPress.

When questions relating to this topic is posed in forums, they aren’t referred to as Excerpts or Teasers. Users ask about breaking up a post, showing only a summary, or “How do I get that ‘click to read more’ link on my posts?” Let’s break it down first before we answer these questions.

First, the definition (according to the wordpress codex):

“An Excerpt is a summary or brief teaser of your posts featured on the front page of your site as well as on the category, archives, and search non-single post pages. WordPress handles Post Excerpts in two ways. One is by an explicit excerpt and the other is through the use of the Quicktag button more. If you want to have a summary of the post show, rather than the first paragraph or so, write the summary of your post in the excerpt field.”

Ok, so the first way it’s handled is by an explicit excerpt. This means that if you write a summary in the excerpt field (listed as ‘Optional Excerpt’ while you’re in the ‘Write Post’ interface), this is what’s displayed. If you leave this field empty, WordPress generates an excerpt based on the first few sentences of your post.

Next, the second way it’s handled is by the use of the Quicktag button more. If you’re using the visual rich editor, this button looks like a page with the top portion being cut. If not, then the Quicktage button simply shows up as ‘more’. What exactly does this button do? Let’s check back with the codex:

“… WordPress tag that breaks a post into “teaser” and content sections. Type a few paragraphs, insert this tag, then compose the rest of your post. On your blog’s home page you’ll see only those first paragraphs with a hyperlink ((more…)), which when followed displays the rest of the post’s content.”

Easy to use huh? Now that we understand the difference between excerpt and teaser, the answers to the questions earlier become apparent. There are other methods of implementing excerpts and teasers. These can be achieved through the use of plugins like Evermore, Post Teaser, and The_Excerpt Reloaded.

Another method of using excerpts is to edit the index.php of your template. Simply change <?php the_content(); ?> to <?php the_excerpt(); ?>. If you do this, all your posts will automatically show excerpts instead of the post.

That’s pretty much it. I hope that somewhere within this rambling of mine, you’ve learned a bit or found the solution for your blog. Thanks for reading.

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