55+ CSS Tools: PreProcessors, Plugins, Editors & Gradient Generators

CSS stands for Cascading Stylesheet. CSS is a markup language used with HTML to design web pages. HTML pages do not look great but with CSS, You can make them look beautiful and attractive. If you are planning to learn WordPress Theme Development, first of all, you should learn HTML and CSS.

More articles from Theme Development Tools series

In this article, We are going to share best CSS tools for beginner and advanced WordPress developers. If you are absolute beginner and don’t know anything about HTML or CSS, you can download 38 free courses and 15 free ebooks to learn HTML, CSS and other programming languages from scratch.

12 CSS Tools: CSS Preprocessors, Apps and Addons

Less CSS: Less is a CSS pre-processor, meaning that it extends the CSS language, adding features that allow variables, mixins, functions and many other techniques that allow you to make CSS that is more maintainable, themeable and extendable.
SASS claims to be the most mature, stable, and powerful professional grade CSS extension language in the world. SASS is almost a decade old and There are an endless number of frameworks built with Sass including Compass, Bourbon, and Susy just to name a few.
Stylus is a CSS Preprocessors, which extend the functionality of regular CSS. offers powerful logical functionality, Ability to run via Node.js / JavaScript, (no Ruby), Ability to run as part of the Node.js set up, Clean and minimal yet flexible syntax.
CodeKit ($32) is a very powerful and popular App for MAC users. CodeKit can compile Less, Sass, Stylus, CoffeeScript, Typescript, Jade, Haml, Slim, Markdown & Javascript. Offer Auto-Refresh Browsers and with built-in Bower, you can install 6,000+ components with a single click including Bootstrap, jQuery, Modernizr, Zurb Foundation, even WordPress.
PrePros ($29): Prepros is a premium tool to compile LESS, Sass, Compass, Stylus, Jade and much more with automatic CSS prefixing, It comes with built in server for cross browser testing. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It offers Automatic CSS Prefixing, Automatic Browser Refresh, File Minification, Image Optimization, Built-in Server and many others.
Emmet : A free plugin for different code editors to write code quickly and easily. Emmet is written in pure JavaScript and works across different platforms: web browser, Node.js, Microsoft WSH and Mozilla Rhino.
Fire.App: A CodeKit like tool, for Windows, is fire.app (it also runs on Linux and Mac). Love Sass/Compass but hate command line interface? Fire.app has first class Sass/Compass support just like our Compass.app. No more vendor CSS prefixes and hand-crafting sprite images!. Fire.app works on Mac, Linux, and Windows platform. The installation process is as easy as clicking and dragging.
Snippets is a free program to manage your code. helps you to organize and reuse code snippets in different projects, share snippets publicly and with your team. This is available for Mac and Windows.
Koala App is a GUI application for Less, Sass, Compass, and CoffeeScript compilation, to help web developers to use them more efficiently. Koala can run on windows, Linux, and Mac.
LiveReload CSS edits and image changes apply live. CoffeeScript, SASS, LESS and others just work. LiveReload monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed.
Scout App is a cross-platform app that delivers the power of Sass & Compass into the hands of web designers. Scout helps make your CSS workflow a snap by delivering more control, optimization, and organization.
Crunch 2 Crunch lets you write Less, Sass, CoffeeScript, Markdown*, and then automatically saves CSS, JavaScript, and HTML after you’ve made changes. Want to write just plain CSS? XML? Haskell? MUSHCode? Crunch lets you do that too. Crunch 2 is an editor that lets you do what you want. Because Crunch loves you.

10 WordPress Custom CSS Plugins

If you want to customize CSS in WordPress, You can use many free plugins or built-in Edit CSS features available under customizer since WordPress 4.7. We have curated a list of free 10 Free CSS Plugins, which helps you to easily modify and save custom CSS.

You can also read this tutorial to learn How to Edit CSS in WordPress Theme Using Chrome Developer Tools and How To A dd Arrow in WordPress Menus With CSS without using jQuery or PHP.

15 CSS gradient generators

colorzilla gradient editor
cssmatic gradient editor
angrytools gradient generator
gradientgenerator.com/
css3generator.com/
cssportal gradient generator
uigradients.com: Ready to use beautiful color gradients
css3factory linear gradients
gradcolor gradient generator
perbang RGB gradient
paintbycode gradient generator
virtuosoft gradient generator
westciv radial gradients
westciv linear gradients
CSS3 Gradient Generator

10 Free online CSS editors

Online CSS Editor by CSS Portal
CSSdeck labs
ScratchPad Realtime HTML and CSS Editor
Online CSS3 Code Generator by EnjoyCSS
cssdesk
jsfiddle : Test your JavaScript, CSS, HTML or CoffeeScript online
CSSmate Editor
CSS Beautify and Minify
liveweave HTML5, CSS3 & JavaScript playground
SelfCSS – WYSIWYG CSS Editor

10 Chrome Extenstion to modify CSS

Final Words

That’s all for this list of CSS Tools for web designers and developers. You can use these free CSS tools to easily customize styles and save your changes. Chrome extensions are very useful to save your CSS edits, without leaving chrome developer tools.

With CSS preprocessors, You can write CSS efficiently. I hope, you will love these tools. This article is part of our Theme Development Tools Series. Don’t forget to join our WordPress Theme Development Newsletter to download free Book and receive latest articles and tutorials about WordPress Theme Development.

Note: This article was originally published at createwptheme.com, We have republished it here with permission.

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55+ CSS Tools : PreProcessors, Plugins, Editors, CSS Gradient Generator and More