Useful List of Tools for CSS Developers, Designers.
This is not an attempt to create a mega list of tools for CSS developers; only few but really useful tools have been selected and placed under appropriate categories. If you see that a really useful tool has been missed, please feel free to share the link in comments.
Note that for a tool to be really useful, it also needs to provide easy to follow instructions and user friendly interface unless it is really straight forward. Unfortunately several tools listed in this list may not fulfill this criteria. If you are aware of another tool that is more user friendly and feature rich than one of the listed tools, please let us know and we may replace it with an existing tool.
Layouts
- CSS Layout Generator
This generator will create a fluid or fixed width floated column layout, with up to 3 columns and with header and footer. Values can be specified in either pixels, ems or percentages. - Grid Designer
Generates fixed and scalable grid layouts along with basic reset and typography. - Layout Generators
Generate multi-column and grid layouts with CSS techniques using %, px, or em.
CSS Frameworks
- Boks
Boks is an Visual Editor for Blueprint CSS Framework; It allows you visually setup a grid and baseline rhythm, build and fill your layout and export all this to HTML and CSS. Boks is an Adobe AIR application, which means it will works on Windows, Mac and Linux. - Useful Tools & Resources For Blueprint CSS Framework
- YAML Builder
YAML Builder is an online tool for visually creating YAML-based CSS layouts. - YUI CSS Grid Builder
- 960 Grid System – Variable Grid System
Based on the 960 Grid System; the variable grid system is a quick way to generate an underlying CSS grid for your site. - Grid System Generator
The grid system generator will create fixed grid systems based on 960 Grid System in valid css / xhtml for rapid prototyping, development and production environments.
Fonts
- Typetester
The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. - CSS Type Set
- TypeChart
Lets you flip through, preview and compare web typography while retrieving the CSS - CSS-Typoset Matrix and Code Generator
- CSStxt
Tool for generating CSS for web typography. - EM Calculator AIR Application
Calculator for Vertical Rhythm in XHTML & CSS; easily convert px to em based on base font-size and line-height; Padding and margins automatically calculated - Em Calculator
Em Calculator is a small JavaScript tool which helps making scalable and accessible CSS design. It converts size in pixels to relative em units, which are based on a text size. - PXtoEM
Colors
- CSS Color Editor
CSS Color Editor allows you to replace the color scheme of your website without going through the entire CSS file. You choose your local CSS file, select new colors and then download the new CSS file with new color codes automatically replaced for you. - Color Palette Generator
Upload an image to generate a color palette based on the image?s primary colors. Useful for quickly grabbing a particular color within an image for inspiration. - Color Contrast Check
The Color Contrast Check Tool allows to specify a foreground and a background color and determine if they provide enough of a contrast ?when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen?.
Sprites
- CSS Sprite Generator
CSS Sprite Generator will combine the uploaded images into a single sprite and generate the CSS for you. - YASC (Yet Another Sprite Creator)
This tools is useful when all your sprite images have been created in a single file. The process is fairly straight forward: you upload this file, then visually select each individual item and specify its CSS id; once you have selected all your sprites you can generate all the required CSS with a single click. - SmartSprites
SmartSprites is Java command line utility that will let you easily introduce and maintain CSS sprites in your designs. SmartSprites parses special directives you can insert into your original CSS to mark individual images to be turned into sprites. It then builds sprite images from the collected images and automatically inserts the required CSS properties into your style sheet, so that the sprites are used instead of the individual images.
Forms
- Accessible Form Builder
Create accessible form with CSS or table layout, including all label elements simply by typing a list of fields that you need. - JotForm ? WYSIWYG Form Builder
A WYSIWYG form builder
Lists / Menu
- List-o-Matic
Create CSS-styled navigation blocks based on unordered list <li> items. Get your semantics on! - CSS Menu Generator
Generates horizontal, vertical & dropdown CSS menus
Text Wrappers
- CSS Text Wrapper
Generates HTML/CSS to wrap content to any shape - The Box Office
The Box Office lets you wrap/float/contour text around freeform images using CSS for usage in HTML pages.
Analysis
- W3C CSS Validation Service
- CSS Redundancy Checker
Use this tool to find CSS selectors that aren?t used by any of your HTML files and may be redundant. - CSS Analyzer
CSS Analyzer checks the validity of your CSS against the W3C?s validation service, along with a color contrast test, and a test to ensure that relevant sizes are specified in relative units of measurement. - Dust-Me Selectors
Dust-Me Selectors is a Firefox extension that finds unused CSS selectors
Optimization
- CSS Drive CSS Compressor
Normal mode allows you to choose from three levels of compression, depending on how legible you want the compressed CSS to be versus degree of compression. You can switch to Advanced mode for greater customization. - Robson CSS Compressor
A good CSS Compressor still in development. - MinifyMe – AIR Application
Adobe AIR application that allows you pack multiple files together.
Formatting
- CleanCSS – CSS Formatter and Optimizer
This tool comes with several options for formatting as well as optimization. It also provides ready made sets of options for various level of balances between optimization and readability. Important feature includes ability to automatically merged the same selectors and properties. - Styleneat
It organizes and standardizes your CSS – selectors, sub-selectors and properties – in a structure that makes it easier to define page areas and see how they relate to each other. - CSS Toolbox
Free CSS Validation, CSS Formatter, CSS Compressor
Browser Specific
- Conditional-CSS
Conditional-CSS allows you to write maintainable CSS with conditional logic to target specific CSS statements at both individual browsers and groups of browsers. Compilers for Conditional-CSS are available in PHP, C# and C. - Litmus
Litmus shows you exactly how your designs look on various platform, across every popular web browser. - Web Browser CSS Support
Detailed information about CSS support in major web browsers, allows you to pick which browser appear on the information tables. - When Can I Use?
Compatibility tables for features in HTML5, CSS3, SVG and other upcoming web technologies. Allows you to specify browsers, features, time period, status, search and sorting options.
Cheat Sheets
- CSS Cheat Sheet
The CSS cheat sheet is a one-page reference sheet, listing all selectors and properties. It includes a visual example of the box model, unit reference for CSS units and the various media types CSS makes allowance for.