CSS Formatter

Transform messy stylesheets into clean, readable code with our CSS Formatter. This tool offers customizable indentation and formatting styles to ensure your CSS remains consistent, professional, and easy to maintain.

Input

Output

Indentation:

How to use the CSS Formatter

Paste your CSS code into the input text area above.
Select your preferred indentation style (tabs or spaces) from the options.
Click the Format button to process your stylesheet.
Copy the formatted output directly to your clipboard for use in your project.

Tip

Use shorthand properties like 'margin' or 'padding' to keep your CSS files shorter and cleaner.

Features and benefits

Why use our CSS Formatter?

Instant Beautification: Convert compressed or messy CSS into a structured format immediately.
Customizable Indentation: Select between 2 spaces, 4 spaces, or tabs to match your project requirements.
Browser-Based Security: Processing happens locally in your browser, ensuring your code stays private.
Whitespace Optimization: Automatically removes redundant spaces and empty lines for a cleaner look.

Did You Know?

The first CSS specification (CSS1) was published by the W3C in December 1996.

Why use an online CSS Formatter?

Improve Your Workflow

Enhanced Readability: Well-formatted code allows developers to scan selectors and properties quickly.
Easier Debugging: Identifying syntax errors or specificity issues is significantly simpler in organized code.
Team Consistency: Maintain a unified coding style across your entire development team.
Simplified Maintenance: Clean stylesheets are easier to update and scale as your project grows.

What is CSS?

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the language used to style and layout web pages—for example, to alter the font, color, size, and spacing of your content. Formatting is crucial in CSS because files can quickly become thousands of lines long. Organized CSS ensures that the cascade and inheritance of styles remain predictable and manageable for developers.

Best Practice

Always place layout properties like 'position' and 'display' at the top of a rule for better clarity.

Integrating formatting into your workflow

Development Best Practices

Editor Extensions: Use plugins like Prettier or Stylelint in VS Code for real-time formatting.
CI/CD Pipelines: Implement CSS linting in your build process to catch unformatted code before it reaches production.
Style Guides: Adopt a standard like BEM (Block Element Modifier) to keep your formatted selectors logical.
Preprocessors: If using SCSS or LESS, format your compiled CSS to check for bloat or unexpected output.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is this CSS Formatter free to use? A: Yes, all tools on Codemata are completely free for developers.

Q: Does my code get stored on your servers? A: No, the formatting is done via JavaScript in your browser, meaning your code is never uploaded or saved.

Q: Does it support CSS variables and Grid? A: Yes, our formatter fully supports modern CSS3 features including Custom Properties, Flexbox, and CSS Grid.

Q: Can I format minified CSS? A: Absolutely. This tool is perfect for 'un-minifying' CSS to make it readable again.

Related Tools

CSS Minifier

HTML Formatter

JSON Formatter

External Resources

MDN Web Docs - CSS - The definitive guide to CSS documentation.
W3C CSS Validator - Check if your CSS follows official web standards.
CSS-Tricks - A great resource for learning modern CSS techniques.