WordPress offers users the option to add biographical info for each author. This bio can be displayed on your theme using the the_author_meta( ‘description’ ) function. But what if you’d like to display only a bio excerpt? Here’s a function to do it.

The first thing to do is to create the function. To do so, paste the following code into your functions.php file:

 <?php 	function author_excerpt (){	                     					 		$word_limit = 20; // Limit the number of words 		$more_txt = 'read more about:'; // The read more text 		$txt_end = '...'; // Display text end  		$authorName = get_the_author(); 		$authorUrl = get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta('ID')); 		$authorDescription = explode(" ", get_the_author_meta('description')); 		$displayAuthorPageLink = count($authorDescription) > $word_limit ? $txt_end.'<br /> '.$more_txt.' <a href="'.$authorUrl.'">'.$authorName.'</a>' : '' ; 		$authorDescriptionShort = array_slice($authorDescription, 0, ($word_limit)); 		return (implode($authorDescriptionShort, ' ')).$displayAuthorPageLink; 		 	} ?> 

Once done, simply call the function when needed, as shown below:

 <?php  if (function_exists('author_excerpt')){echo author_excerpt();} ?> 

Thanks to Tim Marcher for the tip!