Theme suggestion – want to display a summary of posts only

• 

  sundarastudio · Member · Aug 7, 2015 at 3:03 am

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  I am struggling to find a free theme that will allow me to display just a photo and a few short lines of text and a “read more…” or “continue reading…” link at the bottom of each post summary.

  There are themes that seem to display posts like this but when I look at the preview for my blog, the home page displays the entire text of my posts.

  The main thing I’m trying to overcome is an overly wordy landing page and I’d like readers to be able to browse through several blog topics at a glance.

  Ideally I’d like to move to a very simple magazine style front page with one main story and several other smaller photos and post summaries. I’d settle for a chronological list of blog post summaries.

  Thank you!!

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  timethief · Member · Aug 7, 2015 at 3:07 am

  • Copy link

  You can set your RSS Feed to summary. The setting here > Settings > Reading is only for the RSS Feed summary and does not affect the posts.

  Also note what follows please. If you want to display only excerpts on the front page of the blog followed by read more links, you can insert “the more tag” into each post prior to publication.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/

  The read more tag can be inserted once only into any post to change the front page or main page for posts display from full post to an excerpt. The split in the ext does not display to you in preview mode but it will be there after the post is published.

  Alternatively, you can switch to using a theme that automatically displays front page excerpts. This is a list of only SOME active themes on WordPress.com that use the excerpt instead of full post content. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/theme-with-automatic-excerpts?replies=13#post-1396410

• 

  timethief · Member · Aug 7, 2015 at 3:07 am

  • Copy link

  See also https://en.support.wordpress.com/display-posts-shortcode/

• 

  kathrynwp · Staff · Aug 7, 2015 at 4:08 pm

  • Copy link

  How about Gazette, for a magazine theme that displays post excerpts on the homepage?

  https://gazettedemo.wordpress.com/

• 

  kathrynwp · Staff · Aug 7, 2015 at 4:08 pm

  • Copy link

  Canard is another recent option:

  https://canarddemo.wordpress.com/

• 

  sundarastudio · Member · Aug 9, 2015 at 12:15 am

  • Copy link

  Thanks so much timethief and kathrynwp for sending me in the right direction! This is all so helpful!!! Canard looks like a great theme and I might give this a try.

• 

  sundarastudio · Member · Aug 9, 2015 at 12:17 am

  • Copy link

  The More Tag worked like a dream! Thank you so much.

• 

  kathrynwp · Staff · Aug 10, 2015 at 1:28 pm

  • Copy link

  Great! Glad you like Canard and that the More tag is working well!