{"id":126,"date":"2026-05-04T19:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpletool.io\/blog\/?p=126"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:52:24","slug":"css-formatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpletool.io\/blog\/css-formatter\/","title":{"rendered":"CSS Formatter: Beautify CSS, SCSS, LESS in Browser [2026]"},"content":{"rendered":"
TL;DR:<\/strong> A CSS formatter (or “CSS beautifier”) reformats minified, copied, or messy CSS into consistently-indented, readable rules. Use it on copied CSS from a CDN, AI-generated styles, or styles dumped from DevTools. Our free CSS formatter<\/a> uses Prettier 3<\/strong> in your browser with full support for modern CSS \u2014 custom properties, native nesting, container queries, @layer<\/code>, OKLCH \u2014 plus SCSS, LESS, and PostCSS.<\/div>\n

Reading minified CSS is a productivity tax. Tailwind’s compiled stylesheet is one giant line; a copied snippet from CodePen often arrives as a single rule with no breaks; CSS dumped from DevTools’ “Copy all declarations” comes back without the selectors that gave each rule meaning. A formatter restores hierarchy: each rule on its own line, properties indented, @media<\/code> blocks visible at a glance.<\/p>\n

Our CSS formatter<\/a> runs Prettier 3 in your browser with the same parser used by VS Code’s “Format Document” command. It handles plain CSS, SCSS, LESS, PostCSS, and modern CSS features (CSS variables, native nesting, :has()<\/code>, container queries, @layer<\/code>, OKLCH, color-mix()<\/code>). Outputs clean, idiomatic CSS that round-trips through any tool. This guide covers when to format vs minify, the SCSS-specific rules, and the gotchas with copied browser DevTools styles.<\/p>\n

Prettier CSS options that matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Option<\/th>\nDefault<\/th>\nNotes<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
printWidth<\/code><\/td>\n80<\/td>\nAffects wrapping of long selectors and value lists<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
tabWidth<\/code><\/td>\n2<\/td>\nStandard for modern CSS; 4 for legacy stacks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
singleQuote<\/code><\/td>\nfalse<\/td>\nStrings in url()<\/code> and content:<\/code> values<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
endOfLine<\/code><\/td>\n“lf”<\/td>\n“crlf” only for Windows-only repos<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Property sort<\/td>\noff<\/td>\nOptional \u2014 alphabetical, or by Idiomatic CSS groupings<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Prettier’s CSS formatter is deliberately small on options. Modern CSS toolchains add property sorting via separate plugins \u2014 stylelint-config-prettier<\/code> + stylelint-order<\/code> \u2014 rather than baking it into the formatter.<\/p>\n

SCSS, LESS, and PostCSS<\/h2>\n

The same Prettier engine handles three preprocessor dialects:<\/p>\n