Change read more symbol in WordPress

Change read more symbol in WordPress

Read more symbol is shown at the end of each post excerpt on WordPress. Of course, this is the case if you configure your WordPress instance to show post excerpts instead of the full text. The default read more symbol is [...]. The symbol might not be appealing for everybody and even some people may want to get rid of it. In this article, you will learn how to change the read more symbol in WordPress without using any plugins.

The excerpt read more symbol problem

Unfortunately, most of the themes do not support changing the default read more symbol ([...]). The default WordPress Twenty series are no exceptions either. Some themes support that feature under their premium versions which may or may not worth paying for.

But in the WordPress world, you can always find a plugin for any problems. Even not WordPress related.

Having a bad day install this WordPress plugin. Not getting along with your partner install that WordPress plugin.

Joke aside, however, for such a small matter the overhead of having an additional plugin is not worthy. And believe me, nobody wants to have more plugin installed on the WordPress site.

Changing or even removing the read more symbol in the admin panel

As promised, you can tackle the issue very easily without any plugin. All you need to do is go to the WordPress admin panel click on Appearance -> Theme Editor and then from the top-right menu select Themes Functions (functions.php).

Change read more symbol in WordPress

After opening the file, scroll to the end of the file and add the following lines of code,

function new_excerpt_more( $more ) {
    return ' read more ...'; // Replace the content between quotes accordingly
}

add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

If you prefer to know what exactly the above code does with additional tips and tricks, have a look at this YouTube tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asPRA9zqHLg

In that video, it’s explained how to insert some basic HTML tags as well as adjusting the read more symbol spacing.

Inline/featured images credits