thinkmediaco, I am so sorry, I am not sure how we missed this posting.
This is rather complicated because we do not overwrite WordPress’s default behavior for the <description> and <content:encoded>.
WordPress RSS description and content:encoded
First, go into WordPress Settings > Reading. I believe there is an option there “for each article in a feed, show”, make sure you have “summary” selected. It will then use an excerpt of your blog post.
Once that is set, the first 55 words (can be customized, read this: https://matthewfecher.com/webdesign/wp-quick-tip-how-to-change-the-excerpt-length/) will be used from the blog post for your excerpt.
In addition to this, it is possible to also write a custom excerpt for each blog post. When this is enabled, then this excerpt value will be used rather than your blog post.
Changing this is important. The Podcast iOS app from Apple will use the content:encoded value if it is available, where the iTunes desktop does not.
PowerPress iTunes summary (and subtitle if relevant)
PowerPress will use the first 255 characters from your excerpt (or blog post if no excerpt is written) as your itunes:subtitle. You can override this by customizing the iTunes subtitle on a per episode basis (recommended).
PowerPress will use the first 4,000 of your excerpt (or first 4,000 characters blog post if no excerpt) as your iTunes summary. You can override this by customizing the iTunes summary on a per episode basis.
To enable the iTunes subtitle/summary options, go to PowerPress Settings > Basic Settings tab, under the episode entry box options, check either/both options then click save.
Two approaches:
1. Always enter a custom excerpt with your blog posts.
2. Always enter a custom iTunes summary (and subtitle if that has too much information from the original post as well).
With either approach, I highly recommend setting the WordPress Settings > Reading > “for each article in a feed, show” setting to “summary” as well.
This has given me an idea to allow podcasters to customize the length for the iTunes Summary field, to change the default from 4000 to a smaller value. That may also solve your issue.
