How do I show a summary of posts on the home page and…

I would like just a paragraph to show and then show a “read more” button.

Try using the <!--more--> tag where you want your post summary to end. The read more link will be created automatically.

Is there a way to make the italics stick?

That depends upon your theme and what you used to italicise your text.

How can I change the email that is sent out to people who subscribe to my blog and add a button that leads them back to my blog to comment on the post?

Try looking for an email plugin that provides the functionality you need.

So do I use <!–more–> in the body of every post?

I used the Italics button in the edit post section.

Ok, thanks.

So do I use <!–more–> in the body of every post?

Yes – if you want to display a customised post summary on certain pages of your site.

I used the Italics button in the edit post section.

This could still be over-ridden by your theme’s CSS. A link to a page demonstrating the problem might help to confirm that this is the case.

I don’t want a customized summary on certain pages of my site. I just want every post to only show a paragraph or so on the home page instead of showing the entire post on the home page.

see if you can use the_excerpt() instead of the_content() in your index.php (or what template file displays the home page)

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/the_excerpt
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/the_content

Thank you. That worked perfectly. Could you also direct me to how I can now attache a featured image to the posts on my home page? Now that only a summary is showing, I would also like the picture associated with that post to show with the summary. Thanks.

I’m interested in this too. Both implementing the excerpt and a featured image in the excerpt (if it is possible).
Could you please explain for a novice in php and coding how to implement the excerpt. I didn’t quite understand the instructions from https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/the_excerpt

Thanks

Hi parfumio,

I am a novice too. I just went to filezilla, where I upload all my files for my site. I went to public_html, then wp-content, then themes, I selected my current theme and it’s sub folder, and then found the index.php file. I clicked on view, which opened it in notepad. I then looked for the code that had the_content() in it. When I found it, I simply replaced the words the_content with the_excerpt and I left the info in the parentheses alone. It worked for me. I also followed these instructions to make it say “Read More” instead of just leaving the elipses:

Make the “read more” link to the post
Place this in a theme’s functions.php to make the “read more” link to the post

function new_excerpt_more($post) {
return ‘ID) . ‘”>’ . ‘Read the Rest…’ . ‘‘;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);

The fumctions.php file is in the same place as the index.php file. And make sure to click save everytime you edit a file. If you also use filezilla, it will ask you to reupload the edited file, say yes. Hope this helps.

I still need to know how to add a feature image to the excerpt.

you can use a featured image using the_post_thumbnail
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/the_post_thumbnail
https://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/new-in-wordpress-2-9-post-thumbnail-images/