the_excerpt() function modification

It’s tricky… the default filters for the_excerpt are these:

add_filter( 'the_excerpt',     'wptexturize'      );
add_filter( 'the_excerpt',     'convert_smilies'  );
add_filter( 'the_excerpt',     'convert_chars'    );
add_filter( 'the_excerpt',     'wpautop'          );
add_filter( 'the_excerpt',     'shortcode_unautop');
add_filter( 'get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt'  );

I’ve played with removing them, but it doesn’t quite do what you want which is preserve the HTML tags.

It may be I’m just not good at playing with those filters. 😉

Give the plugin repo a look, one of these might do it for you.

I tried that code with my Twenty Eleven child theme but couldn’t get it to work for me. Likely, I’m missing something basic.

If you know how to work with the_content in PHP then you have lots of options but as I’d mentioned, it is tricky.

If your theme is using the_excerpt you can start with the_content like so and make your edits.

add_filter( 'the_excerpt' , 'mh_excerpt_to_content'  );
function mh_excerpt_to_content( $content ) {
        $content = get_the_content();
        // $content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);
        // Something interesting HERE
        return $content;
}

But the interesting part is where I get stuck. If you just truncate the_content then odds are you’ll do so within the html tag and that will render your output badly.

Or you can explore the plugins. That’s where I would start. 😉