WordPress category loop offset possible?

I have been on this for a while now and haven’t really come across a solution to filter the posts on a category page using a sort of offset in php.

There are plugin for posts and pages but I am trying to achieve this with pure php and specifically for a category page.

Scenario example:
A blog with 7 posts, setting the offset to say 3 would begin the loop on the category page to only show (Post4, Post5, Post6, Post7) and NOT (Post1, Post2, Post3).

I am wondering if this would be possible at all and be dynamic enough to apply to all categories without the need to specifically identify which posts to exclude via id numbers.

The ‘offset’ parameter does what you want. I’ve written this hack, it should help you…

<?php
    //The third parameter corresponds to action priority,
    //set it to change the order of execution in case of a conflict
    add_action('pre_get_posts', 'the_modified_loop', 10);

    function the_modified_loop($query){
        //Remove 'is_admin' if you want the code to run for the backend category archive page
        if(!is_admin() && $query->is_category()){
            $query->set('offset', 3);
        }
    }
?>

Let me know if it worked!