How to edit category pages?

Hi,

I just got started with wp. I had it installed ok, but there are a few things that I need- I have searched for both, but haven’t really been able to find a solution.

Here they are:

1) For each category (on the actual category pages), I need to be able to put an introduction text – a different one of each category. I found one solution that required editing a lot of code and manually creating files – I am thinking there should be an easier solution?

2) On category pages, it lists full contents of each post in that category. I would like to have a list of posts in the category instead (just the headline+short description+read more link)

Are there any plugins that will accomplish these things?

Or am I required to edit the template files?