@eddieb I don’t know if you’ve solved this or not, but below is a standard code snippet I use on most sites I create to improve the out-of-the-box “excerpt” function in WordPress……this would let you use the Portfolio setting to display excerpts and have greater control over what appears in the excerpt. You can add formatting tags to what does NOT stripped where you see $text = strip_tags and you can modify the number of word where you see $excerpt_length (note: this is words, not characters). Maybe this will help?
// Improves the look of the excerpt, more words, allows bolding
function improved_trim_excerpt($text) {
$raw_excerpt = $text;
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = get_the_content('');
$text = strip_shortcodes( $text );
$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
$text = str_replace('\]\]\>', ']]>', $text);
$text = strip_tags($text, '<b><strong>');
$excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', 55);
$newexcerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');
$words = preg_split("/[\n\r\t ]+/", $text, $excerpt_length + 1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
if ( count($words) > $excerpt_length ) {
array_pop($words);
$text = implode(' ', $words);
$text = $text . $newexcerpt_more;
$text = force_balance_tags( $text );
} else {
$text = implode(' ', $words);
$text = force_balance_tags( $text );
}
}
return $text;
}
remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'improved_trim_excerpt');
<!--formatted-->