The rss_auto_excerpt plugin automatically displays article excerpts even if an excerpt has not been saved with an article. If for some articles you have defined an excerpt, your own excerpt will be displayed rather than the auto-generated excerpt.

There are 3 different options for auto-generating the excerpt from the article body:

• By Length – specify the number of characters to display from the article body
• By Words – specify the number of words to display from the article body
• By Paragraphs – specify the number of paragraphs to display from the article body

If auto-generating by length, the plugin will ensure that the excerpt does not cutoff in the middle of a word.

If based on the parameters passed into the plugin, the excerpt would not be shorter than the entire article body, the body will be shown instead.

The plugin will also automatically close any open HTML tags which allows for proper handling of lists, bolded or italicized text and other situations.