# Filling Excerpts automatically

**URL:** <https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847>\
**Category:** Using Ghost\
**Created:** [March 6, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847 "2025-03-06T12:22:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PAK](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/pak/32/35175_2.png) [@PAK](https://forum.ghost.org/u/PAK)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/1 "2025-03-06T12:22:16Z")

</div>

Hello,  
I was wondering if there was an option so that Excerpts are filled automatically.  
Right now, i have to fill manually all excerpts, I’d rather Ghost just take the 300 first character of my publication by default and use them rather than doing it myself.  
It seems it’s supposed to work that way by default, so I might be missing something?

I’m using Ghost Pro, with Maali News theme.

Thanks in advance!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cathy\_Sarisky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/cathy_sarisky/32/25750_2.png) [@Cathy\_Sarisky](https://forum.ghost.org/u/Cathy_Sarisky)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/2 "2025-03-06T14:26:46Z")

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It sounds like your theme is checking for and using {{custom\_excerpt}}, which will not generate an excerpt if one is not set, instead of {{excerpt}}, which uses the custom\_excerpt if it exists, or generates an excerpt from the start of the post if it doesn’t.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![satonotdead](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/satonotdead/32/33666_2.png) [@satonotdead](https://forum.ghost.org/u/satonotdead)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/3 "2025-03-06T16:12:25Z")

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One dream with AI integration for tuning this excerpts and make them dynamic like Discourse:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/ghost2/original/3X/8/4/8494abc66012330156b4502132fd83561a76f140.png)

> _This function is not currently integrated to this forum but it’s working really good._

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PAK](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/pak/32/35175_2.png) [@PAK](https://forum.ghost.org/u/PAK)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:18pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/4 "2025-03-06T16:18:07Z")

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Yes, it seem they are :  
post-card-simple.hbs:

```auto
    {{!-- {{#if custom_excerpt}}
      <p class="post-card-simple__excerpt">{{custom_excerpt}}</p>
    {{/if}} --}}

```

post-hero.hbs:

```auto
      {{!-- Custom excerpt --}}
      {{#if custom_excerpt}}
        <p class="post-hero__excerpt text-acc{{#is "page"}} mt-xs{{/is}}">{{custom_excerpt}}</p>
      {{/if}}

```

I suppose changing those to the following would work ?

```auto
{{!-- Custom excerpt or default excerpt --}}
{{#if custom_excerpt}}
  <p class="post-card-simple__excerpt">{{custom_excerpt}}</p>
{{else}}
  <p class="post-card-simple__excerpt">{{excerpt}}</p>
{{/if}}

```

```auto
{{!-- Custom excerpt or default excerpt --}}
{{#if custom_excerpt}}
  <p class="post-hero__excerpt text-acc{{#is "page"}} mt-xs{{/is}}">{{custom_excerpt}}</p>
{{else}}
  <p class="post-hero__excerpt text-acc{{#is "page"}} mt-xs{{/is}}">{{excerpt}}</p>
{{/if}}

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cathy\_Sarisky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/cathy_sarisky/32/25750_2.png) [@Cathy\_Sarisky](https://forum.ghost.org/u/Cathy_Sarisky)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:19pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/5 "2025-03-06T16:19:37Z")

</div>

Yes, exactly. Or you should also be able to just use {{excerpt}} and remove all the logic, since it’ll take the custom\_excerpt if it exists.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PAK](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/pak/32/35175_2.png) [@PAK](https://forum.ghost.org/u/PAK)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:30pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/6 "2025-03-06T16:30:05Z")

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Awesome, even simpler !

I realise: Excerpts are behind paywall ? Is there a way to set this so they are public?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cathy\_Sarisky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/cathy_sarisky/32/25750_2.png) [@Cathy\_Sarisky](https://forum.ghost.org/u/Cathy_Sarisky)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/7 "2025-03-06T16:34:07Z")

</div>

Ah. That’s a good reason for baking a little more logic into the theme. Custom excerpts are NOT paywalled.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PAK](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/pak/32/35175_2.png) [@PAK](https://forum.ghost.org/u/PAK)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/8 "2025-03-06T16:35:57Z")

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Ah, but it removes the automated filling of Excerpt when non is provided 😇

That would be a nice feature to have, to be able to set Excerpt visibility somewhere in the console (Labs?). Not sure it’s do-able in the API : is that something that can be added in the feature-request ? 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cathy\_Sarisky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/cathy_sarisky/32/25750_2.png) [@Cathy\_Sarisky](https://forum.ghost.org/u/Cathy_Sarisky)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 5:42pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/filling-excerpts-automatically/55847/9 "2025-03-06T17:42:09Z")

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There’s an #Ideas forum you could post in. I don’t think it’s currently supported in any way.