How to make WordPress 2011 theme use excerpts

Out of the box the current default theme after installing WordPress shows all of your posts in the long format.

To change the theme to just show a short summary as per the screenshot below read on….

Go to the Dashboard -> Appearance -> Editor

Now edit the file called content.php by selecting it from selection on the right

Search for the term ‘the_content’ using ‘Ctrl + F’ on a Windows PC or ‘command + F’  on a Mac

Now replace the word ‘content’ with ‘excerpt’ and click on update file.

All done, now post pages with have the excerpt.