Custom Excerpts in Sherwood

This post demonstrates how to use custom excerpts in Sherwood frontmatter. The excerpt above will be displayed in blog listings and other content summaries.

Benefits of Custom Excerpts

1. Control: You have full control over what appears in listings
2. SEO: Craft perfect meta descriptions for search engines
3. Marketing: Write compelling summaries to attract readers
4. Context: Provide specific context that might not be in the first paragraph

Auto-Extraction

If you omit the excerpt field, Sherwood automatically extracts the first paragraph from your content and strips all formatting to create a plain text excerpt. This provides a sensible default behavior while giving you the option to override when needed.

Best Practices

• Keep excerpts concise (ideally under 150 characters)
• Focus on the value proposition of your content
• Use active voice and engaging language
• Ensure excerpts accurately represent the full content

The excerpt field gives you precise control over how your content appears in generated site listings and search results.