Hello SNAP readers! I’m excited to be back with another tutorial for WordPress. Today we are going to talk about how to truncate your posts in WordPress…
What is Truncating?
What does truncating mean? Basically it means to shorten something. So in our case, it would be to shorten a post. Most of the time this is on a home or archive page, with a link for the reader to “read more.”
Why Truncate?
Truncating is valuable for several reasons:
- Your readers don’t have to scroll through long posts they are not as interested in.
- It gives the page a clean, organized and professional look.
- It helps increase the number of clicks and page views on your site.
- It keeps auto-content scrapers from stealing your content.
So how do you do truncate posts on your WordPress site? Its actually super easy. First I’m going to show you how you can truncate in WordPress no matter what theme you are using. Then I’ll show you another way if you are running a fabulous Genesis theme.
Truncating Posts in WordPress
In WordPress all you have to do to truncate your posts is click this little image at the top of your post area in the spot you want the break to be…
Then you will see a small dotted line in your post edit area with the word “More…” in the lower right corner like this one…
Finish writing the rest of your post below that dotted line, hit publish and you are good to go! Its that simple. The cool thing is when people click the “read more” link the new screen that opens will start off where they left off reading.
Truncating Posts in WordPress with Genesis Theme
Another way to truncate your posts if you are using a Genesis theme is to go to the “Theme Settings” area under the “Genesis” tab on the left of your dashboard.
Scroll down to the “Content Archives” section. You can leave it at “post content” and set a certain number of characters to show. You can also just select “post excerpt” and it will automatically set the amount of characters shown.
You can also choose to include a “featured image” which is a great way to give your readers a visual preview of the post – just make sure the box is checked and choose what size you want the thumbnail to be.
Hit save and thats it! Not too hard right? Go ahead and truncate those posts! 🙂
P.S. If you want to know anything in particular about WordPress please let me know in the comments, I’d love to cover what YOU want to learn!
Tauni Everett
Creative Director at Tauni Everett
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I would love to learn how to put my social media Icons in my menu header.
Hi Laura! It looks like you are using the Adorable theme. There should be a “header widget” section in your widgets area. You can put your icons there and they will show up in your header. It might be a little tricky from there because you might have to edit the CSS to position them if you don’t like where they are in the header.
What is the name of the slider that’s running on the SNAP homepage?
Jillian, It’s the Genesis slider…I am not sure if you can upload it independent of a Genesis theme or not though…xoxo, Tauni
You can download it independent of Genesis. I’ve never used it on a non Genesis theme but I know you can find it in the plugins area of WordPress. Here is a link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/genesis-slider/
hmmmm…i did exactly what you said to do and nothing happened (and yes, i hit save…double checked!) ideas?
Hey Jeannett, I am going to have Amy get in touch with you! xoxo, Tauni
You have mail Jeanett! 🙂
Does my blog already do this???
Thanks Angelina
I’m hoping you’re still up to having questions….
I would love to have only my first post appear in it’s entirety and then truncate all of the following posts. I have been searching and searching to find an answer. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Natalie
Amy,
Thanks so much for this great tutorial! I just switched to the Genesis theme, so it was super easy.I have the same question as Natalie. I’d like to have the first post complete, but the rest truncated.
Thanks I had no idea it was that easy.
I know that I can use that button to shorten my post and get the “read more” option, but is it possible to get my picture to show up on the left of the paragraph using that way?
Hi, Amy. Is there a way in wordpress (genesis) to truncate all posts except the most recent? Lil Luna’s site does it that way, and I’d love to figure out how! I just saw that two other people asked this question, too. Maybe you already have an easy answer. Fingers crossed! (It was fun meeting you at dinner last night.)
I was trying to figure out how to do this and one of my blogger friends referred me to this posts! Thank you!!!