This plugin adds several improvements to WordPress’ default way of creating excerpts.

1. Keeps HTML markup in the excerpt (and you get to choose which tags are included)
2. Trims the excerpt to a given length using either character count or word count
3. Only the ‘real’ text is counted (HTML is ignored but kept)
4. Customizes the excerpt length and the ellipsis character that are used
5. Completes the last word or sentence in an excerpt (no weird cuts)
6. Adds a read-more link to the text
7. Ignores custom excerpts and use the generated one instead
8. Theme developers can use the_advanced_excerpt() for even more control (see the FAQ)

Most of the above features are optional and/or can be customized by the user or theme developer.

Banner image credit – chillihead

Original plugin author – basvd

Useful Resources

• What is WordPress
• Fee Themes and plugins