How to Add Multiple Custom Excerpt Lengths In WordPress

By default WordPress excerpts are set to 55 words and there is an excerpt_length filter which allows you to change this default value to your length of choice. But what if you wanted a different excerpt length on different sections of your site? For example if you are developing a website with multiple post types you may want to show different excerpt lengths depending on the post type. A blog post may have a longer excerpt than for example a portfolio item.

Custom Excerpt Function

Below you will find a custom function we’ve developed to help you display excerpts at different lengths in WordPress. To use the function simply add it to your functions.php file and then you can go about replacing either the_excerpt or the_content functions throughout your theme so you can different excerpt lengths.

function wpex_get_excerpt( $args = array() ) {

	// Default arguments.
	$defaults = array(
		'post'            => '',
		'length'          => 40,
		'readmore'        => false,
		'readmore_text'   => esc_html__( 'read more', 'text-domain' ),
		'readmore_after'  => '',
		'custom_excerpts' => true,
		'disable_more'    => false,
	);

	// Apply filters to allow child themes mods.
	$args = apply_filters( 'wpex_excerpt_defaults', $defaults );

	// Parse arguments, takes the function arguments and combines them with the defaults.
	$args = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults );

	// Apply filters to allow child themes mods.
	$args = apply_filters( 'wpex_excerpt_args', $args );

	// Extract arguments to make it easier to use below.
	extract( $args );

	// Get the current post.
        $post = get_post( $post );

	// Get the current post id.
	$post_id = $post->ID;

	// Check for custom excerpts.
	if ( $custom_excerpts && has_excerpt( $post_id ) ) {
		$output = $post->post_excerpt;
	}

	// No custom excerpt...so lets generate one.
	else {

		// Create the readmore link.
		$readmore_link = '<a href="' . esc_url( get_permalink( $post_id ) ) . '" class="readmore">' . $readmore_text . $readmore_after . '</a>';

		// Check for more tag and return content if it exists.
		if ( ! $disable_more && strpos( $post->post_content, '<!--more-->' ) ) {
			$output = apply_filters( 'the_content', get_the_content( $readmore_text . $readmore_after ) );
		}

		// No more tag defined so generate excerpt using wp_trim_words.
		else {

			// Generate an excerpt from the post content.
			$output = wp_trim_words( strip_shortcodes( $post->post_content ), $length );

			// Add the readmore text to the excerpt if enabled.
			if ( $readmore ) {

				$output .= apply_filters( 'wpex_readmore_link', $readmore_link );

			}

		}

	}

	// Apply filters and return the excerpt.
	return apply_filters( 'wpex_excerpt', $output );

}

How To Use The Function

So now instead of using “the_excerpt()” in your loops you can use “wpex_excerpt( $args )”, where $args holds an array of your preferred settings for the specific excerpt.

Example:

<?php echo wpex_get_excerpt ( $defaults = array(
	'length'          => 40,
	'readmore'        => true,
	'readmore_text'   => esc_html__( 'read more', 'wpex-boutique' ),
	'custom_excerpts' => true,
) ); ?>

Function Filters

You may notice that our snippet includes various apply_filters() functions. Why? The reason for this is if you are working on a premium or free theme or plugin for distribution you will want to give the end users the ability to alter their excerpts via their child theme if needed. For example if you defined an excerpt to be a certain length for a section of the site the end user could always use the “wpex_get_excerpt_args” filter to change the excerpt to a different length or customize the text or readmore