Add Word Limit to Posts

Question

Is there a way to limit the number of words per post through the the_content() function or something similar?

Answer 1

You can limit is through a filter on the_content

For example (in functions.php):

add_filter("the_content", "Content_Filter_Custom");

  function Content_Filter_Custom($content)
  {
    // return a subset of it
    return substr($content, 0, 300); 
  }

Answer 2

Here are a few filters I rely on for limiting word and character counts. The first is character based but only splits between words.

function nicetrim( $string ) {
        // limit the length of the given string to $MAX_LENGTH char
        // If it is more, it keeps the first $MAX_LENGTH-3 characters
        // and adds "..."
        // It counts HTML char such as á as 1 char.

        $MAX_LENGTH = 50;

        if ( strlen(  $string )  <= $MAX_LENGTH ) {
            return $string;
        }

        $s2  =  substr( $string, 0, $MAX_LENGTH  );
        $s3  = preg_split( "/\s+(?=\S*+$)/", $s2 );
        $s4 = $s3[0];
        $s4 .= "…";
        return $s4;

This one excepts a word count variable and looks for your more tag. It also strips out any html before counting then adds it back.

function trim_the_bio( $the_bio = '',  $all_words = 25, $more_link ='' ) {
        $the_bio = strange_chars ( $the_bio );
        $html = '</span><a id="more-link" href="#">More &darr;</a><a style="display:none;" id="less-link" href="#">Less &uarr;</a>';
        // Removes any tags not in the allowed tags array
        $allowed_tags = array ( 'a', 'abbr', 'b', 'blockquote', 'b', 'cite', 'code', 'div', 'em', 'fon', 'h1', 'h2', 'h3', 'h4', 'h5', 'h6', 'i', 'img', 'label', 'i', 'pre', 'span', 'strong', 'title', 'ul', 'ol', 'li', 'object', 'embed', 'param' );
        if ( $the_bio != '' && $all_words > 0 ) {
            // process allowed tags
            $allowed_tags = '<' . implode( '><', $allowed_tags ) . '>';
            $the_bio = str_replace( ' ]]>', ' ]]>', $the_bio );
            $the_bio = strip_tags( $the_bio, $allowed_tags );
            if ( 20 < count ( preg_split ( '/[\s]+/', strip_tags ( $the_bio ), - 1 ) ) && $more_link != '' ) $flag = true; else $flag = false;
            // exclude HTML from counting words
            if ( $all_words > count( preg_split( '/[\s]+/', strip_tags( $the_bio ), -1 ) ) )  if ( $flag == false ) { return $the_bio; } else { return $the_bio.$html; }
            // count all
            $all_chunks = preg_split( '/([\s]+)/', $the_bio, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );

            $the_bio = '';
            $count_words = 0;
            $enclosed_by_tag = false;
            foreach ( $all_chunks as $chunk ) {
                // is tag opened?
                if ( 0 < preg_match( '/<[^>]*$/s', $chunk ) ) $enclosed_by_tag = true;
                elseif ( 0 < preg_match( '/>[^<]*$/s', $chunk ) ) $enclosed_by_tag = false; // get entire word
                if( !$enclosed_by_tag && '' != trim( $chunk ) && substr( $chunk, -1, 1 ) != '>' ) $count_words ++;
                $the_bio .= $chunk;
                if ( $count_words >= $all_words && !$enclosed_by_tag ) break;
            }

            // Close any unclosed tags
            $the_bio = force_balance_tags( $the_bio );
        }

        // Throw it down...
       if ( $more_link != '' ) return $the_bio . $html;
       else return $the_bio;
    }