How to Show Author Bio Excerpt in WordPress

Are you looking for a way to show a short intro of the author bio of a post and not the complete bio? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to show author bio excerpt in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s single.php file:

// Paste the code below to the functions.php file inside the theme directory you're using.
function author_excerpt (){	                     					
	$word_limit = 20; // Limit the number of words
	$more_txt = 'read more about:'; // The read more text
	$txt_end = '...'; // Display text end 
	$authorName = get_the_author();
	$authorUrl = get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta('ID'));
	$authorDescription = explode(" ", get_the_author_meta('description'));
	$displayAuthorPageLink = count($authorDescription) > $word_limit ? $txt_end.' '.$more_txt.' <a href="'.$authorUrl.'">'.$authorName.'</a>' : '' ;
	$authorDescriptionShort = array_slice($authorDescription, 0, ($word_limit));
	return (implode($authorDescriptionShort, ' ')).$displayAuthorPageLink; 		
}

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly copy / paste code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 23 effective tips to get more email subscribers and how to increase maximum file upload size in WordPress.