Custom About Author WordPress Plugin
This plugin acknowleges authors for their post by displaying a brief biography about them at the end of their post.
Giving authors the credit they deserve!
The plugin also has the option to display the author’s website user profile or a custom profile.
Below is an example of an about author display

This plugin is perfect if you have multiple guest bloggers on your website and they do not each have a user account.
It also gives an added incentive for bloggers to write guest posts on your site.
Multiple custom profiles can be created and they take preference over website user profiles.
You also have the option to specify a specific profile to display for each post.
Custom profiles are completely configurable, it can include links to social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Google+) or you can specify any HTML/text you want to display.
To specify a custom profile on a post, you just need to create a custom field called “post-author” with the value of the custom profile username.
Plugin features:
- Display author profile at end of post.
- Display website user profile or a custom profile.
- Custom profile displayed take precedence over website profile.
- Able to display ANY custom profile (does not need to match the username of the post author)
- Ability to display profile display on a per post author basis or on a post basis.
- Option to include social media buttons on both website profile or custom profile.
- Custom Profile is fully configurable. You can choose to display anything you like in there.
Why should my post have an author profile?
Author profiles at the end of every posts are important as they allow readers to learn more about the post authors. Search engines also uses author profiles to identify users and when done properly, are able to link users to post articles. Have you done a Google search and notice that some of the result entries have a picture of the author next to them? That’s because those posts have an author profile.
Below is an example of a search result in google which displays an Author profile picture.

Donate
If you find the Custom About Author WordPress Plugin useful, show your support and make a donation.
Installation
This section describes how to install the custom about author wordpress plugin and get it working.
- Upload the folder `custom-about-author` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Done!
Configuration
By default, the plugin will start showing about author displays for all posts. The information will be taken from the user’s profile.
Information that is used are:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email (This is to obtain the user’s gravatar image)
- Website (If supplied, the name in the display will be a link to the website)
- Biographical Info
In additional, there will now be new fields for social media. (See image below). The social media icons will only be displayed for those which you have filled in.
Lastly there is an option “Disable about author display”. Checking this will disable the automatic displaying of the about author for all posts written by that author.
Advanced Configuration
This plugin gives you more options for displaying the about author. The options are:
- Change global settings.
- Create a custom profile to display.
- Specify a custom profile to display which has a different username from the post’s author.
- Shortcode to display a custom profile
- PHP code to display a custom profile
- Have complete control over the HTML being displayed.
Change global Settings

In the Custom Authors setting, you can change the global settings on which the custom about author is displayed. By default, it will only display on single post.

Note: shortcodes are not affected by the global settings.
Create a custom profile to display
If you do not want to use your user profile information in the about author display, you can create a custom profile instead. This is especially useful if you use a different address for your user and your gravatar image.
To create a custom profile, just go to Custom Authors in the Users menu.

There you can create a custom author profile. For custom profiles to replace user profiles, you will need to create the custom profile with the same username as that of the user.
Specify a custom profile to display which has a different username from the post’s author.
If you like to display a custom profile which has a different username that that of the post’s author, you can do so by using a custom field in the post. When you are editing the post, below the post content there should be the option to add custom fields. If you can’t find that, you need to adjust the “screen options” which is near the top right of the browser. (next to help)
Add a custom field with the name post-author and the value would be the username for the custom profile you like to display for that post.
In the screenshot below, the username being used is some-username.
Note: Custom fields will display a custom profile even if the post author has chosen to disable the “about author display”.
PHP code to display a custom profile
There had been many request for PHP code by developers wanting to integrate their wordpress theme with the custom about author plugin.
The PHP codes to use are
caa_get_current_author_bio()
and
caa_get_author_bio($username)
The first method will display the custom about author information for the author of the post or page, while the second method, the username to display is passed into the method as an argument.
The methods do not print the custom about author box to screen, but instead returns it.
So a typical usage will be something like the following
echo caa_get_current_author_bio();
of
$content = caa_get_current_author_bio();
echo $content;
Shortcode to display a custom profile (Available from version 1.2 onwards)
To display the custom author pro profile anywhere in the post, you can use following short-code
[custom_author=username]
Where username is the username of the author you would like to display. (e.g: if username is john, then shortcode is [custom_author=john])
of you can also use [custom_author] which will use the page or post author as the author to display.
Customize the HTML code being displayed in the about author.
There is the option in the custom author profile to display a custom HTML code in the about author display. To do that, just check the box “Use Custom HTML” and enter the Custom HTML.
Change Log
- Version 1.4
- Added new social media fields (Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo)
- Added global settings to choose type of content to display custom author (home page, page, single post, archive page)
- Add shortcode to display custom author
(no username needs to be specified) - Added php code for use in theme ( caa_get_current_author_bio() or caa_get_author_bio($username) )
- Fix to facebook social media link.
- Version 1.3
- Custom author box no longers display on the main blog page
- Added WYSIWYG editor for editing custom HTML
- Version 1.2
- Added option to use a custom author image (instead of gravatar)
- Added shortcode to display custom author
- Version 1.1.2
- Fixed problem with extra \ being added to ” and ‘
- Version 1.0
- Initial Release
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. If I have both a custom author and a website user with the same username, which will be displayed?
Any custom author will take precendence over website users. So the custom author will be displayed.
Q. If I have chosen to disable display for a profile user, would a custom author with the same username be displayed?
No, if a profile user is disabled in the user settings, then no custom author will be displayed.
The only exception to this is if you have a custom field in the post for “post-author”. In that situation, the custom author specified in that field will be displayed.
Q. How do I disable the display for just a single post?
Create a custom field in the post for “post-author” and put a non-existent username in there (e.g: nobody).
Q. How does the plugin work to determine whether and which profile to display?
The plugin works using the following logic:
1. check if author has disabled display
2. check custom fields “post-author” to see if an author is specified
3. If author has disabled display and there is no valid author specified in (2). then nothing will be displayed.
4. Otherwise check if author has a custom profile
5. If it does, display custom profile, otherwise display user profile
More Questions or Comments?
Visit the Forum to post your questions.
Also even though the plugin is free, providing support can be time-consuming. Therefore if you like to make a donation, it will be greatly appreciated. I don’t always have time to respond to all support requests, but if you make a donation, I will make your question a priority. Thanks.






Hi there,
there is a problem with your plugin – when trying to put html code, it puts slashes in front of symbols like ” , ‘ etc, so it is not possible to use the html code feature.
Cheers,
R.
Hi Rob,
Thanks for highlighting the issue. Am looking into it and will release a fix soon.
Cheers,
Edwin
I just wanted to say thanks for an excellent plugin. I really appreciate it.
Ps, Don’t stress but after implementing your plugin, it’s knocked out my homepage widgets. Every other page is fine except the homepage. >> I have my blog set to another page and not the home page in the wp-admin, could this have done it? I’ve left it so you can see it. Visit the link I’ve left you.
Err, actually, all of my pages don’t have widgets. Only the page which displays posts does…
Okay. A little more information. It seems to be a Buddypress issue. All the pages I have set up, don’t have widgets. All the pages that buddypress populates with it’s own code do. ( Note: The Featured Members Page is set to full width, and has no sidebar )
P.s. Switching off the plugin does nothing either.
Okay fixed it. I am no coder so bare with me. I re-uploaded buddypress, folder by folder. The issue was with the theme folder in Buddypress ( which is notoriously touchy ). Once I updloaded this folder it was fine. Your plugin works and my widgets are back. I hope this helps.
Sorry, using http://ftp...
That’s meant to say F T P ( it got converted into a url ) Cheers.
Hi Little Handy Tips,
Just downloaded your plugin. Looks sweet. Thanks for the great work. I wonder if there’s any way to shortcode it anywhere I want on my page. Cheers,
Le Coursier à Vélo
Hi Le Coursier à Vélo,
You can use the custom field post-author to specify an author, but it will be displayed as the end of the post.
Can you provide me with an example of how you intend to use it? I should be able to shortcode it.
Cheers,
Edwin
G’Day Le Coursier à Vélo,
I’ve just released version 1.2 of the Custom About Author Plugin.
It now includes the functionality to short-code it.
[custom_author=username]
Cheers,
Edwin
OK I’ll see if I can get one of the functions in your display-about-author-block.php file working …
Your update today doesnt work. Get this error “The plugin does not have a valid header.”.
Sorry Robert, (For Version 1.1) there was a mistake made when I was transferring the files to the wordpress plugin repository.
Can you connect to your server via FTP and delete the plugin by removing the directory /wp-content/plugins/custom-about-author
and after that re-install the plugin.
My apologies for that but you need to connect to your server via ftp or other means as I couldn’t find a way to remove it through the wordpress dashboard.
Edwin
I really like the plugin, but is there a way to make the background transparent, or change the color?
Hi Theresa,
There is currently no way to do that. I might put that as an option in one of the future release.
Thanks,
Edwin
Is it possible to make the “About Author” only visible when the post is fully visible, so after clicking on “Read More”. Because right now my homepage is full with duplicate content of the about author info below each article post.
I’ve just released version 1.3 of the plugin which addressed the problem you have highlighted.
Cheers,
Edwin
Your plugin is the best about author box I’ve found at wordopess repository
I’d like a php shortcode to insert in sidebar.php. Is it possible? Tks
Because I need a bio author box in the sidebar/widget and not after post.
thanks again
Hi Roy, the shortcode functionality has been added to the plugin in version 1.2.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-about-author/changelog/
The shortcode is [custom_author=username]
Cheers,
Edwin
This shortcode works fine in post but doesn’t work in sidebar.php
I’m looking for a php shortcode like, for example,
Thanks again
sorry but comment form doesn’t let me to post a php tag for a example..
Something wrong with this plugin, in homepage its fine,in post its fine also but in archieves or category, this author bio shown and its like duplicate my content. How to overcome this?
Also i like the author bio in single post and below all the other widget not after post. Can i do that?
Hi Naziman,
Could you provide a link to your website so that I can take a look at the problem?
Thanks,
Edwin
This is my blog.( http://naziman.com/ ) I hope you can solve this problem.
p/s : my blog didn’t use english for primary language but i think it doesn’t matter right.
Thank you. I love this plugin. Sorry for below comment, i forget to give blog link and reply to your comment.
This is my blog. I hope you can solve this problem.
p/s : my blog didn’t use english for primary language but i think i doesn’t matter right.
Thank you. I love this plugin.
This plugin has completely confused me. How do you link a custom author to a post in WordPress? If I have to set up a user in WordPress just so that the custom author can be linked via this, then surely that defeats the object of this plugin?
Unless I’m missing the obvious?
Hi,
The plugin is great thank you. However I cannot find the Configration button so that I can “Disable about author display” for all posts, as currently they are duplicating Author info in my Footer, Header areas.
Appreciate your help.
further update… I have found the check box, however disabling Author info removes it from post content and footer. However it appears in the header part. I have seen a similar query in your forum by Staryouth. Could you please advice urgently?
Thankyou
Great plugin!
Any way to display to code this into a page theme? For example instead of using the_author();
Thanks!
Dustin
Hi Dustin,
How about trying the following code:
echo caa_get_author_bio( get_the_author_meta(CAA_Author::user_login) )
HI…this plugin is just what I need, but I’m getting error messages with the upgrade to WordPress 3.3 – just a heads up! Hoping for an upgrade soon!
Hi Terry Brock,
Are you still having problems with this? I’ve upgraded my sites and there are no problems.
Edwin
Realy one of the best author plugins just some minor things i would suggest to make it even easier to handle as it adds the author box on every post . It would be nice to choose single post (archive page , pages ) ect . adding the postmeta to every post to exclude or add the box is much more work .
still have some css trubles but could be my themplate too
Optional Social fields like flickr ,youtube ,vimeo and stumble would be sweet to for the visual blogger out there. The post with the url below have a aktive author
/facebook-virus_entfernen/
‘Thanks for the great work
Hi @metacowboy,
Thanks for the suggestions. Will put them in the next version of the plugin.
Edwin
Hi there,
Thank you for the plugin.
I was wondering whether it’s possible to specify the shortcode without a username and in this case, it detects the author of the post?
Reason being, I’d like to include the shortcode in a page layout for displaying the author archive and have the author bio displayed at the top of those pages.
Ideally, this option also allows having the shortcode displayed as a sidebar widget as well so there’s extra benefit for having this functionality.
Thoughts?
Thanks
Martin
Hi Martin,
Great idea! I’ll add it to the next version which should be released in the next few weeks.
Edwin
This is a great plugin. Thanks. Now I’m looking for a way to show all the users in a post. How can I do that? The same information and aspect that this plugin offer for each user. Is it possible?
Hi Alex,
I’m not quite understanding what you’re requesting. How do you have multiple authors for a single post?
Edwin
hi i added your pluging but i cant Disable about author display ?? is this nolonger in the code ?
Lastly there is an option “Disable about author display”. Checking this will disable the automatic displaying of the about author for all posts written by that author.
Hi Gary,
That option “Disable about author display” is what you can use to disable the about author display. Was that what you were asking?
Edwin
I experienced that the plugin does not support Indic Unicode (UTF-8) fonts in the authors profile (“Description”) field, it changes to gibberish symbol (“ঔ) right after saving. Can you fix this?
Hi Promit,
Thanks for highlighting this issue. Will put a fix out for this in the next release.
Edwin
When I try insert the custom author by using post-author and some-username
(of course using the user name I want)
nothing happens
so instead I insert the html into the post for that author but when I update it the post now shows my custom author profile and the new one I just added.
How can I make mine go away when I publish the post and that person doesnt have access/a username to my dashboard.
I hope that makes sense! thanks!
Hi Cailin,
Is the HTML you are referring to, the shortcode? Can you tell me which custom author box is displaying which user? e.g: the post-author was displaying your profile and the HTML shortcode was showing the other user?
Thanks,
Edwin
Just noticed a little issue. When I scroll over the author FB icon to view the link before clicking, the link reads www.facbook.com/mypagename. Where can I change that in the editor so the link shows correctly? Note:the link does take you to correct page. (I’d post my blog but for now it is a WIP)
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Hi, I added your plugin and found it to be very useful. But I would like to know that can i have the author bio box in seperate place rather than the content area?
I haven’t tried that before. Try using a shortcode in the separate area, it might work.
The shortcode format is
[custom_author=username]
Where username is the username of the author you would like to display. (e.g: if username is john, then shortcode is [custom_author=john])
http://littlehandytips.com/plugins/custom-about-author/#short-code
Thanks for all the time and effort spent on this plugin
In my testing and review of the admin area I noticed that if I edit the Social Media settings in the existing user Profile… the Facebook settings shows “facbook.com/” [note the missing 'e']. Additionally, when the custom author bio is then shown on a post, the url shown when I hover over and click Facebook is also wrong “http://facbook.com/username”
Luckily Facebook redirects that url to the correct one.
It’s a simple fix but thought you would want to know.
Thanks for highlighting that issue localtech. I’ll put the fix in the next release of the plugin. Many thanks.
I think this is a really great plugin, but I want a different background color. How can I edit the code to make this happen?
Hi Nea, you’ll have to edit the image file in images/author-background.png to change the color.
hi, I have a problem with the plugin.
On the wordpress page i can see the formatted box, with the gravatar, bio and social media icons. Everything shows, but when i go to my website, i can only see the box, the gravatar and the name. There are no social icons or bio info.
Any ideas on this?
thanks!
i managed to work it out. Somehow the edit user page got duplicated and i was doing it in the one that didn’t work. Now it works and i love it!
thanks!
After updating to the latest version, the custom author no longer shows at the bottom of any posts.
I love this plugin.
Just one question. I’ve been wanting to put it at the top of the post instead of the end. I used the code you posted at the top for pages (this one: echo caa_get_author_bio( get_the_author_meta(CAA_Author::user_login) ) )
It works great. But it still posts the box at the end of the post.
How can I remove it from the end? What coding should I change/remove?
Hi RIch,
Try di-abling the about author display. Look at screenshot (http://littlehandytips.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/custom-about-author-social-media-screenshot.png)
By doing so, you disable all automatic display. Let me know if that works.
Thanks for your response.
Where do I find that spot?
I found a box to disable automatic display under the “custom authors” spot but I don’t see the social icons anywhere.
Nevermind! I think I just found it. Didn’t realize it was on the individual user’s profile area.
Thanks for your help.
I’ve got it working now.
When I add the social buttons the display vertically instead of horizontally.
Hi Rich,
I wonder if its your theme’s CSS style sheets which are causing the images to display vertically. Could you check that by change to a different theme (Maybe the standard wordpress 2011 theme) and see if the problem goes away.
Edwin
Same here! When I add the social buttons the display vertically instead of horizontally.
Hi Steffen,
Same as Rich, I wonder if its your theme’s CSS style sheets which are causing the images to display vertically. Could you check that by change to a different theme (Maybe the standard wordpress 2011 theme) and see if the problem goes away.
Edwin
Hi, is there any way to get the author bio to display in the RSS feed?
Sorry Bree, this plugin doesn’t do RSS.
Thanks Edwin. I worked out how to get the bio info to show up in RSS by using the shortcode, but when I put it in the post that way, two author bio boxes show up in the post – the one I want, and the bio of the user who created the post (we have a lot of guest-posters, so posts have to be created this way to manage them).
How do I add the bio via shortcode under a different author to the creater of the post without both showing up?
Hello!
How do I display the nickname instead of first and last? I want to ALWAYS display the nickname and never display first/last. I DONT need to be able to pick and choose depending on the user or post.
Thank you.
Hi Sarah, why don’t you put the nickname in the first name field and leave the last name blank?
Hi Edwin. Nice plug-in! I’m taking advantage of the custom author field and using a custom author image. However, although I’m using a 75×75 image, the image isn’t set correctly in the frame. Is there an adjustment for this, or might this be a bug? Here’s an example: http://www.dajuanjones.com/choosing-your-wedding-photographer-by-marcus-bell/
Thanks in advance!
Hi Dajuan,
Thanks for highlighting the problem. Unfortunately I can’t debug the problem on your site as you have disabled right-clicking on your site
Hi, I love the plugin but it is only working for my posts, not my pages! (I did make sure to tick / check both boxes on the settings page.)
Sent you a donation before I realized… But that’s ok
However would be glad of any advice.
Hi Linda,
Thanks for your donation. I’ve emailed you on the issue you have raised. Hopefully we can quickly resolve the problem.
Edwin
I have a problem with Custom About Author plugin. When i am posting a post then show two times author bio and i think my all setting is right.So how it can be possible Plz. solve my problem..
See this page as a ex: http://www.searchenginebrief.com/hi/
Hello , Edwin Kwan
I am Thai webmaster, i use wordpress CMS for my blog here “http://www.giftforlive.com/”
I use “Custom About Author Plugin” for each user Signature. but i can’t use Custom Authors function Completely, because when i use Thai character, script are working, but my Thai language incompatible display on Author box.
I think maybe this problem from script encoding,for English and arabic character
Please suggest me about Encoding edit script language, How to change Thai character.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Klang
Bangkok, Thailand
ps, Custom About Author is that plug-in works beautifully. I like it
I am trying to keep users out of the admin area. I’m setting up a membership site with wpsymposium which has it’s own front end profile. Is there any way this plugin can pull from that plugin instead? So far all the plugins I’ve found for after post author boxes requires authors to fill out the WP back end profile. Is there a way around this?
Thanks,
Jim
Hi,
I am using your shortcode [custom_author=name] to compile a list of all the authors and although the white box and formatting is available, it does not actually pull the info from the author’s profile, so all I have are blank boxes. Do you know why this may be?
Thanks!
never mind, I resolved the issue! sorry about that.
Hi, I’m building an author.php for my current theme, and want the bio box to display at the top (above the list of author’s posts). I’ve tried everything and failed. Perhaps someone else can help?
Currently I’m using this:
echo caa_get_author_bio( get_the_author_meta(CAA_Author::user_login) )Any help would be greatly appreciated.
try echo caa_get_current_author_bio();
Hey, I’m working on a site that uses your plugin. Like someone who left a comment above, they want the author box at the top of the post instead of the bottom.
Two questions. 1, what’s the best way to do this without an upgrade messing up my changes?
2, or better yet, if I was to patch your plugin to add this as a feature, would you incorporate it into the official plugin code? If so, I’ll add a global setting for top/bottom of the post, and hand the code off to you.
I have an issue with the plug-in.
The white box is too big. It seems to be twice as big as the one you have on this page.
Here is a screen-shot.
http://tinypic.com/r/jpwh6x/6
Hi Dimi,
What’s the link to your website? I need to look at the code in order to determine the problem.
Hi Edwin.
My website is currently on the development stage. Plz send me an email so I can send you more details.
Thanks in advance!
Dimi,
As Edwin said, it’s hard to know what’s wrong without seeing source code. If you’re problem is not already fixed by now, I would suggest checking out your CSS files and the IDs and classes used for the author box. Seems like something got targeted that wasn’t suppose to.
It may also be a JavaScript issue, but more likely a CSS issue.
here is my style.css code
http://pastebin.com/Xy6KMqh1
and here it is the page code which generates the big white box
http://pastebin.com/cxP67RkT
http://tinypic.com/r/jpwh6x/6
Dimi,
It’s still hard to really say, because with the way you showed me the HTML/CSS, many images and style sheets are still missing.
From what I did see, it might be an issue with your theme CSS and how it’s formatting its paragraphs.
An example:
.entry p{
margin:5px 0px 20px 0px;
padding:5px 0px;
line-height:24px;
}
I’m not 100% because I can’t see it running, but that line height can be a factor depending on where it ends up being used.
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Hi! I’ve installed your plugin, and the interface is really easy to use.
However, all contents I typed has displayed distorted. I use your plugin for a Traditional Chinese website.
Can you help?
Would be really cool to be able to show a shadow on the bottom of the text box the renders on the posts and pages. I’ve seen this added to some…how hard would this be to add to the admin area or hard code?
Use something like this? http://203kexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/shadow600.png
Hi Gary, do you have an example website which uses the shadow so that I can take a look at it please?
Another question :: My video site address for YouTube is: youtube.com/203kexperts and the only option I have from the admin area codes the youtube as: youtube.com/user/[channel-name]
?? Ideas on how to overcome?
By the way! LOVE THIS PLUG-IN!
Hi Gary, thanks for the feedback, your YouTube issue is definitely a unique one as most users don’t have that sort of address.
My recommendation is to change the code in the plugin to remove /users from the YouTube link.
Cheers.
Thanks for a great plugin. Is there a way to make the social links open in a new window, so the visitor doesn’t leave my website?
Thanks,
Ray
Hi Ray, there currently isn’t a way to do this using configuration.
What I would suggest is to change the code (by adding target=_new) to the links ( tag).
Hope that helps.