WordPress.org

Does it remove HTML tags?

Yes, it does.

Can't you make it leave HTML tags in?

If you want to leave HTML in, then the "more" tag is your friend. the_excerpt is meant to remove HTML.

How can I have excerpts of different lengths?

You can manually call the function like this: <?php echo better_excerpt($length, $ellipsis, $before_text, $after_text, $link_to_post, $link_text); ?> for example <?php echo better_excerpt(500, '...', '

', '

' '1', 'read more'); ?> obviously replacing the variables with your own values. The value of link_to_post should be 'yes' or 'no'. All variables need to have values, so if you don't want any - e.g. - code before or after the extract, you need empty inverted commas ''

Does it leave half-words at the end of my excerpt?

No, it doesn't: half-words are trimmed back to the end of the previous word.

I set length to 55 but it's only giving me about 10 words

Length is set in characters - that is, letters, numbers, spaces and bits of punctuation. We do it like this because some people use lots of long words, and some people don't, so a ten word excerpt for some would be the same length as a twenty word excerpt for others. As a general rule of thumb, assume 5 letters in the average English word.

I installed it but now I get a fatal error for strrpos...

This plugin requires PHP5. Most likely, you're still running PHP4. It's time to upgrade.