Your WordPress blog archive is showing full posts where you expected short previews. I’ve seen this trip up a lot of users. It’s usually a theme setting or a missing option in the post editor, and it’s easy to fix once you know where to look.
This guide walks through four methods, from a quick toggle in the post editor to a code fix for themes that don’t support excerpts at all.
TL;DR: Fix WordPress Post Excerpt Not Showing
WordPress blog archives show full posts instead of short previews when excerpts are not enabled. Here are 4 methods to fix it:
- Screen Options – Enable the Excerpt field in the WordPress post editor (classic or block editor sidebar).
- Theme Settings – Turn on Post Excerpt in the WordPress Customizer if your theme supports it.
- SeedProd – Use the Show Excerpt toggle in the Theme Builder to control length and read more text.
- Manual Code – Replace the_content() with the_excerpt() in your theme’s template file.
What Are WordPress Post Excerpts?
A WordPress post excerpt is a short summary or preview of a blog post. It’s often used on your blog archive, homepage, or category pages to give readers a glimpse of your content before they click “Read More.”
Why Use Excerpts in WordPress?
Using post excerpts instead of full content has multiple advantages, both for your website visitors and overall performance.
Benefits of Showing Excerpts:
- Faster Load Times: Only a portion of each post loads on archive pages, speeding up your site.
- Improved Readability: Users can quickly scan multiple posts without scrolling through full content.
- Higher Engagement: Short previews paired with a “Read More” link encourage users to click into posts.
- Cleaner Blog Layouts: Especially helpful on your homepage, category, or search results pages.
- Better SEO: Organized content structure improves crawlability and user experience.
By default, WordPress displays full posts on archive pages. However, many themes let you switch to excerpts via the WordPress Customizer or theme settings. If your theme doesn’t support them, don’t worry, I’ll show you how to fix that next.
How to Fix WordPress Post Excerpts Not Showing
There can be several reasons why WordPress excerpts are not showing on your website. It largely depends on how you set your website up, which theme you use, and whether your theme supports excerpts.
We’ll walk you through several solutions below so you can fix the WordPress post excerpt not showing problem fast.
Enable the Excerpt Field in the WordPress Editor
The fastest way to enable excerpts in WordPress is through the post editor. If you’re using the classic editor, click the Screen Options tab in the top-right corner of any post, then check the Excerpt box. The excerpt field will appear below the editor.
If you’re using the block editor, the Excerpt panel is in the right sidebar under the Post tab. If you don’t see it, click the Options menu (⋮) in the top-right corner, go to Preferences » Document Settings, and toggle Excerpt on.
I’d start here before touching any theme files. Whatever you type in this field overrides any auto-generated excerpt your theme might show.
Check That Your WordPress Theme Supports Excerpts
First, let’s see if your current WordPress theme supports excerpts.
Most popular WordPress themes will have settings to display custom excerpts built-in. You can find the settings by checking your theme settings or by visiting the WordPress customizer panel.
To do that, head to the Appearance » Customize screen and find the heading for your blog. We’re using the Astra theme, so the heading is titled ‘Blog.’
The next screen lets you choose between your blog and archive settings or single post settings. Click the Blog / Archive heading.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Post Content’ heading and ensure that the Post Excerpt button is active.
After clicking the Publish button to save your changes, your blog posts will show an excerpt box instead of the full post content.
Most popular WordPress themes will have similar settings in the WordPress customizer. However, if your current theme doesn’t support excerpts, you might like the next solution.
Add Post Excerpts with a Custom WordPress Theme
Another way to fix WordPress post excerpts not showing is to build a custom WordPress theme with all the features you need.
It used to be difficult and expensive to do this because you’d need to learn code or hire a developer. However, the advent of page builder plugins has changed that, allowing anyone, whatever their technical ability, to create stunning websites easily.
One such plugin is SeedProd, the best website builder for WordPress. It lets you create WordPress themes from scratch and add all the custom features you need for your business website, including:
- High-converting landing pages
- Custom sidebars
- Custom post excerpts
- Customizable product pages
- Lead generation forms
- Countdown timers
- Coming soon and maintenance mode
- And more.
The best thing about SeedProd is it requires no code, design, or technical expertise. The plugin automatically generates all the theme template files, freeing you to customize your theme visually with its drag-and-drop editor.
Follow this step-by-step tutorial to create a custom WordPress theme with SeedProd. After, follow these instructions to add customizable excerpts to your new theme.
Displaying Post Excerpts with SeedProd
First, navigate to the SeedProd » Theme Builder page from your WordPress dashboard. Next, find the Blog, Index, Archives, Search template file, and click the ‘Edit Design’ link.
You’ll see SeedProd’s visual drag-and-drop page builder on the following screen.
This is where you can customize your blog archives page, add additional features, and change its layout. Moreover, you’ll see any changes immediately in the live preview on the right.
Your blog page’s design depends on the settings you choose when creating your custom theme. However, SeedProd includes the following elements on blog page templates by default:
- Heading
- Archive Title
- Posts
Click the Posts element on your preview to see its available customization options in the left-hand panel.
This is where you control what information visitors to your blog will see, such as:
- Post Query (post type)
- Layout
- Pagination
- Featured Image
- Meta descriptions
- Author
- Comments
In the same panel, you can also show or hide post excerpts. Simply scroll to the bottom of the panel and move the Show Excerpt toggle to the ‘On’ position.
After you’ll see extra settings that allow you to change the excerpt length, enable a ‘read more’ link, and customize the ‘read more’ link text.
Now all that’s left is to hit the Save button in the top-right corner and check out your blog page to see your post excerpts.
Pro Tip: You can add post excerpts on any post, page, or custom sidebar with SeedProd. Simply drag the “Post Excerpt” block from the blocks panel and drop it onto your website design.
Manually Add Post Excerpts to WordPress
If you don’t want to create a custom theme, or your theme doesn’t support excerpts, another way to fix post excerpts in WordPress is by adding custom code.
This method involves customizing your theme files, so we recommend creating a child theme first. That way, you won’t lose the changes you’ve made when you update your theme.
After creating your child theme, you’ll need to find the template file that displays your blog archives. For many themes, the file name will be something like:
- home.php
- content.php
- archive.php
- category.php
See this WordPress template hierarchy guide if you need help deciding which template to choose.
After opening the relevant template file, find the following line of code:
<?php the_content(); ?>
Next, replace it with the excerpt tag:
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
You can now update the file and see post excerpts in place of the full post content.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Can I add post excerpts if my current theme doesn’t support them?
Yes. You have two options. Build a custom WordPress theme with SeedProd, which includes a Show Excerpt toggle with control over length and read more text. Or edit your theme’s template file and replace the_content() with the_excerpt() to display excerpts instead of full posts.
How can I manually add post excerpts to WordPress?
Create a child theme first to protect your changes from future updates. Then find your theme’s blog archive template file (usually home.php, content.php, or archive.php) and replace the_content() with the_excerpt(). Save the file and your archive pages will show post excerpts instead of full posts.
What is a child theme and why should I create one before manually adding post excerpts?
A child theme inherits everything from its parent theme but stores your changes separately. When you update the parent theme, your edits stay intact. Without a child theme, a theme update will overwrite any code changes you’ve made to template files.
Next Steps
In this post, you’ve learned how to fix the WordPress post excerpt not showing issue for your website. You might also like this guide on how to hide images in mobile view on WordPress.
Ready to fix your post excerpts with a custom WordPress theme?
Get Started with SeedProd today.
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