[Resolved] Remove subheadings (H2) from excerpts

[Joey]

Is there a way to automatically remove the subheadings (i.e. H2) from excerpts on the archive and category pages? I know I can just do a custom excerpt but when I do that it screws up my formatting because my featured post has a longer excerpt. I’m not sure if there’s a solution for this. I thought I would ask, however, as it looks a little weird. Many of my posts have subtitles and the excerpts by default just display them as a part of the paragraph. Thank you.

[David]

Hi there,

i found this article. The Code – 1 option looks like it should work:

https://bacsoftwareconsulting.com/blog/index.php/wordpress-cat/how-to-remove-header-tags-and-their-content-in-wordpress-excerpt/

[Joey]

Hey it works. This is what I used, in case it helps anyone else:

function bac_wp_strip_header_tags( $text ) {
    $raw_excerpt = $text;
    if ( '' == $text ) {
        //Retrieve the post content.
        $text = get_the_content(''); 
        //remove shortcode tags from the given content.
        $text = strip_shortcodes( $text );
        $text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
        $text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
     
        //Regular expression that strips the header tags and their content.
        $regex = '#(<h([1-6])[^>]*>)\s?(.*)?\s?(<\/h\2>)#';
        $text = preg_replace($regex,'', $text);
     
        /***Change the excerpt word count.***/
        $excerpt_word_count = 20; //This is WP default.
        $excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', $excerpt_word_count);
         
        $excerpt = wp_trim_words( $text, $excerpt_length, $excerpt_more );
        }
        return apply_filters('wp_trim_excerpt', $excerpt, $raw_excerpt);
}
add_filter( 'get_the_excerpt', 'bac_wp_strip_header_tags', 5);
?>

The settings I already have for word count override whatever number I put in for the word count in the code above, which is fine for my purposes. It also overrides anything I write for custom excerpts, which is also fine. Thanks a lot for your help.

[David]

Awesome – glad to be of help and thanks for sharing your method.

[Simon]

Joey, David – this is great, and what I needed.

Quick question – what do I add or remove to the code in order to keep the words ‘Read more’ at the end of the excerpt?

Thank you!

[Leo]

Looks like you already did it?

I’m not seeing Read more on the page you’ve linked.

If not please open a new topic for the new question.

Thanks!

[Author]

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