Websites are the go-to platforms that we use when we want to put information online in some professional capacity. In the last 20 years, there has been an explosion of websites and web design has become an acclaimed art; easy to learn, hard to master.
New technology plays an important role in this. Most people can quickly pick up the basics of writing CSS, but a true master uses a CSS editor to assist with crafting their art. This can be any text editor with special features for CSS or a purpose-built CSS editor.
There are a lot of free CSS editors that you can choose from and we thought you might need help deciding on one. With a CSS editor,you typically have access to live previews, automatic code completion, and other neat features. Not all CSS editors are created equal, however.
Let’s check out more details in this article created by our team at wpDataTables.
What is CSS?
CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language that controls how HTML is displayed. It lets you easily apply style rules to target elements (selectors) on a web page. It’s the de facto standard for marking up the style of a web page in either HTML or XHTML.
An advantage of CSS is that it helps developers to separate content from the presentation layer. CSS makes setting the style and layout for each page that you see on a site easy. It uses just a single file to control the style and layout of multiple web pages all at once.
CSS code is really easy to read and write, so even non-programmers can delve into the design of their site and make changes to how it looks.
Advantages of CSS Editors
If you’ve been a web developer until now then you know how important a good CSS and HTML editor is. Having the right CSS editor means that you will be able to create beautiful sites with less effort.
The CSS editor that you should choose should complement your web development workflow and any existing tools that you already use. Some of the most useful features to look out for include:
- Live preview
- Auto completion
- Syntax highlighting
- Validation
Pick a CSS Editor Out of This Selection
In no particular order, and without further ado, here’s the list of the best CSS editors we could find:
Atom-IDE
If you go for Atom you can get great features for smarter code navigation (e.g. outline view). It works on Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Other cool features include the auto-completion that is a great asset when you are trying to code faster and it also has a built-in package manager that will let you search for new packages and install them. Look for CSS-specific packages to help you write CSS easier.
Sublime Text
Sublime Text is a proprietary cross-platform source code editor. It natively supports many programming languages and markup languages, and functions can be added by users with plugins, typically community-built and maintained under free-software licenses.
There are also lots of Sublime themes and text plugins that could work for you.
Mozilla Thimble
This CSS editor by Mozilla is quite new and it helps you to test and see instant changes to the code of a page. The screen has half of it focused on the code and the other half focused on the preview of the site that you are trying to build. Any changes that you make to the code can be seen instantly in the preview so take advantage of this feature.
Notepad++
Notepad++ is Notepad on steroids — it’s designed to help you code faster and with less effort, so you can focus on making your website look great. It’s perfect for a pro or a beginner that wants to try coding for the first time.
Espresso
The web editor for Mac is back. For people who make delightful, innovative, and fast websites — in an app to match. Espresso helps you write, code, design, build and publish with flair and efficiency.
Sophisticated text features, amazing Live Preview with Browser X-Ray, CSS Edit tools, the Navigator, Dynamo auto-building, and Server Sync. Whether you’re starting from scratch or tweaking a live site, Espresso has you covered.
Coda
Coda is a powerful, multi-purpose code editor with all the features you need to build clean, elegant websites. It has a special focus on making CSS easy to manipulate with CSS overriding, autocomplete, and much more.
Brackets
Brackets is an open-source code editor that is focused on front end web design and development. It is highly visual and includes a live preview and inline editing capabilities. The great thing about it is that it has a lot of awesome extensions.
Simple CSS
This free CSS editor runs on all platforms including Mac, Windows, and Linux and it allows you to create CSS from zero. You can use it to modify existing sheets and you will enjoy a familiar point-and-click interface that you might have encountered before.
Hey, did you know data can be beautiful too?
wpDataTables can make it that way. There’s a good reason why it’s the #1 WordPress plugin for creating responsive tables and charts.
And it’s really easy to do something like this:
- You provide the table data
- Configure and customize it
- Publish it in a post or page
And it’s not just pretty, but also practical. You can make large tables with up to millions of rows, or you can use advanced filters and search, or you can go wild and make it editable.
“Yeah, but I just like Excel too much and there’s nothing like that on websites”. Yeah, there is. You can use conditional formatting like in Excel or Google Sheets.
Did I tell you you can create charts too with your data? And that’s only a small part. There are lots of other features for you.
TopStyle CSS editor
This CSS editor is impressive from the start. You can choose a style definition that shows properties and values that are supported by different browsers. Note that development has ended for this editor, but it is still available for download.
PSPad
PSPad is a freeware text and code editor that looks quite complicated at first. Still, this one does a good job of helping you write basic code, especially CSS. It has many different functions and extensions so it might just be what you were looking for.
Stylizer
This CSS editor helps you with cool tools that can be used quickly in order to develop CSS snippets that will help you style your website.
It’s also got a great live preview feature that works great for testing your changes.
Codepad
Codepad isn’t exactly a CSS editor, but it is great for a developer that wants to share CSS code snippets with others. Simply paste your CSS into the form, click Submit, and copy the link generated to share your snippet for others to view or edit.
EnginSite CSS Editor
This is an advanced CSS editor that has some hard to find features when compared with other editors. You have an instant preview and the editor can easily be used for new designers that are focused on simple tasks and designs.
StyleMaster
This CSS editor was made to run on Windows and Mac. It can be used by anyone no matter if they are a beginner or an expert. The software doesn’t only provide WYSIWYG but also offers access to all the information that you need to check different CSS properties.
Bluefish
Get this CSS editor online and change the way you were coding until now. You can use it for many different web development tasks and it can be a perfect match if you are just starting to learn CSS. See for yourself!
CSS Frame Generator
This is an extremely helpful CSS editing tool that lets you generate a CSS skeleton from existing HTML. It returns all your CSS selectors in the order in which it finds them.
Style Studio CSS Editor
Check out this CSS editor if you aresearching for a powerful one that will help you bring W3C CSS standards into the mix. It has some cool features like a CSS validator and syntax coloring.
CoffeeCup Responsive Site Designer
CoffeeCup’s Responsive Site Designer is a visual CSS editor that makes it easy to change the way your site looks without delving too much into technicalities.
Rapid CSS Editor
If you are writing CSS code daily this might be one of the best CSS editors that you can get your hands on. It provides syntax highlighting, automatic code completion, and a multi-browser preview tool.
Aptana Studio
Build web applications quickly and easily using one of the industry’s leading web application IDEs. Aptana Studio harnesses the flexibility of Eclipse and focuses it into a powerful web development engine. With Aptana, you can get combine your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript workflow into one program.
Firebug
Firebug ushered in the Web 2.0 era. Today, the work pioneered by the Firebug community through the last 12 years lives on in Firefox Developer Tools. Use this tool to inspect and modify your CSS on-the-fly.
CSS3 Please
You can edit the underlined values in this CSS file, but don’t worry about making sure the corresponding values match, that’s all done automatically for you. Whenever you want, you can copy the whole or part of this page and paste it into your own stylesheet.
Netbeans
Netbeans is a full-featured IDE that works with many different languages including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is incredibly powerful and is managed by the Apache Software Foundation — one of the top organizations shaping the future of the Web.
Webstorm
Jetbrains’ WebStorm is a complete solution for coding websites in HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and more. It acts as an assistant with helpful hints, automatic code completion, and error detection. If you also work heavily with JavaScript, this one’s a must.
Astyle CSS Editor
Astyle CSS Editor is a neat piece of software that lets you write and edit CSS with fine-grained control and precision in a visual format. It requires no coding knowledge.
BlueGriffon
Blue Griffon is a Web and EPUB editor that can be used for editing CSS with its excellent style sheet manager and the CSS Editor Pro functionality. It is able to tell you all the details you need to ensure correct, error-free code.
Sky CSS Tool
Sky CSS Tool is a neat online app that lets you create and define CSS rules in a helpful visual manner. The point-and-click nature of this tool makes it easy for beginners to write their own CSS without knowing much code.
CSS Fly
CSS Fly is a bare-bones tool for editing HTML and CSS easily, directly, and in real-time in your browser. It’s great for when you don’t need all the bells and whistles of an IDE or full-featured code editor.
Final thoughts on choosing a CSS editor out of these
In conclusion, choosing your CSS editor depends on several different factors. Most importantly, you should select the editor that has all the features you need, and little else.
Web design is a massive field, and not all the tools listed above will be applicable to your specific workflow or project requirements. Take the time to shortlist the ones you are interested in, and then narrow down your selection based on a test or trial of each.
Quick question: are you part of a company that can’t handle the workload you have. Why not outsource to Serbia? There are lots of great advantages to working with a team from Serbia compared to using one from the US.
If you enjoyed reading this article on CSS editor, you should check out this one about CSS text glow effects.
We also wrote about a few related subjects like CSS image gallery, HTML search box, CSS mobile menu, CSS page transitions, and CSS image hover effects.
