Overview

When adding a content page to a newsletter, you can control how much of the page's summary text appears on the newsletter card. This is managed through the Excerpt setting, which gives you the flexibility to show a full description, a short preview, or no summary at all, helping readers understand what they're about to open before they click.

1. Excerpt options

There are three configuration settings to choose from depending on your layout style and communication goals:

• No excerpt: select this if you do not want any summary text to appear. Only the content title and image (if available) will be shown on the newsletter card. Use this when the title alone is self-explanatory, or when you want a clean, minimal layout.

• Short excerpt: displays a brief version of the content summary. This is useful when you want to give readers just enough context without taking up too much space in the newsletter layout.

• Full excerpt: displays the complete summary text of the content page. This helps you provide more background on the page, clearly explain the purpose of the content, and help readers decide if the content is relevant before clicking.

2. Character limits for smart content blocks

When enabling the Show excerpt option inside a smart content block, the system automatically truncates the text length. This character limit is determined strictly by your chosen layout configuration:

3. Dynamic text sourcing fallbacks

If a content page does not have a summary written by its original creator, Simpplr ensures your layout remains complete by deploying an automated system fallback rule:

1. Evaluate content properties: initial check. The newsletter engine checks the targeted content page database record for a dedicated, custom-written summary string.

2. Detect missing summary field: fallback trigger. If the summary string is empty, the engine immediately accesses the main body HTML text source of the target page.

3. Extract first 80 characters: text slicing. The platform extracts the first 80 characters of raw text from the page body, strips out HTML tags, and applies it as the card's excerpt text.

This automated processing logic ensures the newsletter always displays meaningful preview text, even when a summary hasn't been explicitly set.

Strategic best practices

Choose your excerpt mapping purposefully to match the structural intent of your communications:

• Apply Full excerpt configurations to items where context matters most. This is best for policy updates, internal announcements, process changes, training materials, and important documents or resource links.

• Apply Short excerpt configurations for lighter, everyday content where a brief teaser is enough to generate interest.

• Apply No excerpt configurations only when a textual preview is unnecessary, for example, when the title and companion image are already self-explanatory.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What's the difference between Short excerpt and Full excerpt?

Ans: Short excerpt displays a brief version of the content summary to give readers just enough context, while Full excerpt shows the complete summary text, giving more background on the page's purpose.

Q: What happens if a content page doesn't have a summary written for it?

Ans: The system automatically falls back to extracting the first 80 characters of raw text from the page body, with HTML tags stripped out, so a preview still appears even without a manually written summary.

Q: Does the character limit change depending on the layout I choose?

Ans: Yes. Showcase view allows up to 150 characters, List view up to 100 characters, and two-column Layout view up to 70 characters.

Q: When should I choose No excerpt instead of a short or full one?

Ans: No excerpt works best when the title and image alone are self-explanatory, or when you want a clean, minimal card layout without summary text.

Q: Which excerpt setting is recommended for important announcements or policy updates?

Ans: Full excerpt is recommended for content where context matters most, such as policy updates, internal announcements, process changes, training materials, and important documents or resource links.

Q: Is the Full excerpt option available on all platform versions?

Ans: Full excerpt was introduced in the 25.12 release, so it's available from that release onward.

Q: Can excerpt settings affect how often people click on my newsletter content?

Ans: Yes. Excerpt settings influence how clearly readers understand what they're about to open, which can help reduce accidental misclicks and improve engagement quality.