How to show excerpt instead of full post in Twenty Sixteen?

WordPress Twenty Sixteen theme only have the capability to display full post even after adding excerpt. This snippet helps to display the summary

Recently, I got hands on to WordPress Twenty Sixteen theme and I have also published a demo video on MatruDEV YouTube channel. While checking some detailed options we find that Twenty Sixteen does not have the capability to display only post the summary on blog home page even after manually writing excerpt.

Hence, as an alternative you can replace few lines of code as mentioned below to get post summary instead of a full post. This change of lines should be done from theme editor in content.php and also make sure that you have the backup of the content.php file in case if anything goes wrong.

Here are steps to find and replace the code:

Go to WordPress dashboard > Appearance > Editor.
Look for the content.php file. (might be at very bottom)
Click to open in edit mode and look for below code.

<div class="entry-content">
		<?php
			/* translators: %s: Name of current post */
			the_content( sprintf(
				__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),
				the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )
			) );

			wp_link_pages( array(
				'before'      => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',
				'after'       => '</div>',
				'link_before' => '<span>',
				'link_after'  => '</span>',
				'pagelink'    => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',
				'separator'   => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',
			) );
		?>
	</div><!-- .entry-content -->

<?php

/* translators: %s: Name of current post */

the_content( sprintf(

__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),

the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )

) );

wp_link_pages( array(

'before' => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',

'after' => '</div>',

'link_before' => '<span>',

'link_after' => '</span>',

'pagelink' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',

'separator' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',

) );

</div>

Remove and replace this complete code with following lines of code:

<div class="entry-content">
		<?php
		if ( is_single() ) :
			/* translators: %s: Name of current post */
			the_content( sprintf(
				__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),
				the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )
			) );

			wp_link_pages( array(
				'before'      => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',
				'after'       => '</div>',
				'link_before' => '<span>',
				'link_after'  => '</span>',
				'pagelink'    => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',
				'separator'   => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',
			) );
			else :

			/* translators: %s: Name of current post */
			the_excerpt( sprintf(
				__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),
				the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )
			) );

			wp_link_pages( array(
				'before'      => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',
				'after'       => '</div>',
				'link_before' => '<span>',
				'link_after'  => '</span>',
				'pagelink'    => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',
				'separator'   => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',
			) );
			endif;
		?>
	</div><!-- .entry-content -->

<?php

if ( is_single() ) :

/* translators: %s: Name of current post */

the_content( sprintf(

__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),

the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )

) );

wp_link_pages( array(

'before' => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',

'after' => '</div>',

'link_before' => '<span>',

'link_after' => '</span>',

'pagelink' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',

'separator' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',

) );

else :

/* translators: %s: Name of current post */

the_excerpt( sprintf(

__( 'Continue reading %s', 'twentysixteen' ),

the_title( '<span class="screen-reader-text">', '</span>', false )

) );

wp_link_pages( array(

'before' => '<div class="page-links"><span class="page-links-title">' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentysixteen' ) . '</span>',

'after' => '</div>',

'link_before' => '<span>',

'link_after' => '</span>',

'pagelink' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . __( 'Page', 'twentysixteen' ) . ' </span>%',

'separator' => '<span class="screen-reader-text">, </span>',

) );

endif;

</div>

Once the changes are done, then click on Save button at the bottom and clear cache if used and check your home page for the changes.

Twenty Sixteen Excerpt

Conclusion and Notes:

You WordPress home page with Twenty Sixteen theme should appear with post excerpt or summary with Continue Reading link. But if you have manually added excerpt while writing post, continue reading link will not appear, also auto-summary will be replaced by the manual excerpt.

If you need any other modification or help in Twenty Sixteen theme, then comment below. More modification with WordPress Twenty Sixteen theme will be coming soon.