Last August, we introduced a new WordPress.com Customizer panel called Content Options, which gives users an easy way to make small visual modifications across their sites – no custom CSS needed.
Content Options supports four main features: Blog Display, Author Bio, Post Details, and Featured Images.
Content Options are now available to self-hosted WordPress sites with the latest version of Jetpack (4.5). Theme developers can add support for Content Options by following the Jetpack guide.
Let’s look at the main features of Content Options in more detail.
Blog Display
Users can choose between displaying the full content of each post or an excerpt on the blog and category, tag, and date archive pages, as well as search results.


Default Blog Display
If a theme displays either an excerpt or the full post depending on the post’s post format, theme developers can add a “Default” blog display option to let the theme keep its default blog display settings. For example, by default a theme might always displays posts with the Quote post format as the full post, so a quote is never truncated, while other post formats like Standard might be always displayed as an excerpt.

Author Bio
On the single post view, users can opt to display the name and bio of the post’s author. This information comes directly from the author’s profile at Users → Your Profile, and their Gravatar image.

Post Details
The post details section allows users to show or hide the post date, categories, tags, or the post author’s name.


Featured Images
Users can choose whether to display featured images on single posts and pages. They can also opt whether to display featured images on blog and archive pages, which include category, tag, and date archives as well as search-results pages.

WordPress.com users have loved the flexibility Content Options gives them. We’re very pleased that self-hosted sites can now benefit as well!