How to disable content pagination?

Question

I want to totally disable this functionality from WordPress because I'm implementing my own version of this with Javascript.

When I try to grab all the content in a post via the get_the_content() or the_content() it gives me only the first page, since the content has the page breaks. When I use $post->the_content I get the full post but it's not formatted with HTML tags. I don't want to have to add those myself programatically.

So I either need to get all the content already formatted - the way to do this is unknown to me at the moment or disable wp_page_links() so it doesn't paginate my posts.

Answer 1

EDIT - Now that 4.4 is out, you should use the content_pagination filter. See birgire's answer below.

---

You can add formatting to raw post content by applying the content filters directly to $post->post_content:

echo apply_filters( 'the_content', $post->post_content );

This will bypass pagination by not using the get_the_content function, which is what the_content uses internally to retrieve the current page's content for multipage posts.

You can prevent wp_link_pages from outputting anything by applying a filter to its output before the function is called and using the __return_empty_string helper function:

add_filter( 'wp_link_pages', '__return_empty_string' );

Answer 2

New content pagination filter in WordPress 4.4

As of WordPress 4.4 we can use the content_pagination filter ( see ticket #9911 )

/**
 * Filter the "pages" derived from splitting the post content.
 *
 * "Pages" are determined by splitting the post content based on the presence
 * of `<!-- nextpage -->` tags.
 *
 * @since 4.4.0
 *
 * @param array   $pages Array of "pages" derived from the post content.
 *                       of `<!-- nextpage -->` tags..
 * @param WP_Post $post  Current post object.
 */
 $pages = apply_filters( 'content_pagination', $pages, $post );

This filter lives in the setup_postdata() method of the WP_Query class and will make it easier to modify the pagination pages.

Here are few examples how to remove the content pagination (PHP 5.4+):

Example #1

Here's how we can disable the content pagination:

/**
 * Disable content pagination
 *
 * @link http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/208784/26350
 */
add_filter( 'content_pagination', function( $pages )
{
    $pages = [ join( '', $pages ) ];
    return $pages;
} );

Example #2

If we want to only target the main query loop:

/**
 * Disable content pagination in the main loop
 *
 * @link http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/208784/26350
 */
add_filter( 'content_pagination', function( $pages )
{
    if ( in_the_loop() )
        $pages = [ join( '', $pages ) ];

    return $pages;
} );

Example #3

If we only want to target post post type in the main loop:

/**
 * Disable content pagination for post post type in the main loop
 *
 * @link http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/208784/26350
 */
add_filter( 'content_pagination', function( $pages, $post )
{
    if ( in_the_loop() && 'post' === $post->post_type )
        $pages = [ join( '', $pages ) ];

    return $pages;
}, 10, 2 );

Answer 3

You can kill the "link pages" functionality in one filter by stripping the nextpage markers out of the post content:

function kill_pages($posts,$qry) {
 if ($qry->is_single()) {
  $posts[0]->post_content = preg_replace( '/<!--nextpage(.*?)?-->/', '',  $posts[0]->post_content );
 }
 return $posts;
}
add_filter('the_posts','kill_pages',1,2);