Content Summaries

With the use of the .Summary page variable, Hugo generates summaries of content to use as a short version in summary views.

Summary Splitting Options

• Hugo-defined Summary Split
• User-defined Summary Split

It is natural to accompany the summary with links to the original content, and a common design pattern is to see this link in the form of a “Read More …” button. See the .RelPermalink, .Permalink, and .Truncated page variables.

Hugo-defined: Automatic Summary Splitting

By default, Hugo automatically takes the first 70 words of your content as its summary and stores it into the .Summary page variable for use in your templates. Taking the Hugo-defined approach to summaries may save time, but it has pros and cons:

• Pros: Automatic, no additional work on your part.
• Cons: All HTML tags are stripped from the summary, and the first 70 words, whether they belong to a heading or to different paragraphs, are all put into one paragraph.

User-defined: Manual Summary Splitting

Alternatively, you may add the <!--more--> summary divider where you want to split the article. For org content, use # more where you want to split the article. Content that comes before the summary divider will be used as that content’s summary and stored in the .Summary page variable with all HTML formatting intact.

• Pros: Freedom, precision, and improved rendering. All HTML tags and formatting are preserved.
• Cons: Extra work for content authors, since they need to remember to type <!--more--> (or # more for org content) in each content file. This can be automated by adding the summary divider below the front matter of an archetype.

Example: First 10 Articles with Summaries

You can show content summaries with the following code. You could use the following snippet, for example, in a section template.

{{ range first 10 .Data.Pages }}
    <article>
      <!-- this <div> includes the title summary -->
      <div>
        <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h2>
        {{ .Summary }}
      </div>
      {{ if .Truncated }}
      <!-- This <div> includes a read more link, but only if the summary is truncated... -->
      <div>
        <a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">Read More…</a>
      </div>
      {{ end }}
    </article>
{{ end }}

Note how the .Truncated boolean valuable may be used to hide the “Read More…” link when the content is not truncated; i.e., when the summary contains the entire article.