.css files
.css file
Cascading Style Sheet
The text file that tells a web page how to look.
What opens a .css file
- Windows
- Visual Studio Code, Notepad (built in), Any web browser (shows source)
- macOS
- Visual Studio Code, TextEdit (built in), Any web browser (shows source)
- Linux
- Visual Studio Code, Text Editor (built in)
- In a browser
- CodePen, CodeSandbox
What a .css file is
CSS holds the rules — colours, fonts, spacing, layout — applied to HTML elements, and is a W3C standard. It is plain text you can read and edit in anything, and it does nothing on its own: opening a .css file in a browser shows the source, not a page. Sites often ship a minified version with all whitespace stripped, which is valid but painful to read.
Converting it
A .css file is commonly converted to .scss, .less or .txt. It is a plain text format, so any text editor can open and edit it directly.
Details
- Extension
- .css
- Full name
- Cascading Style Sheet
- Category
- Code and scripts
- MIME type
- text/css
- Created by
- W3C
- Format
- Plain text
Common questions
- How do I open a .css file?
- On Windows use Visual Studio Code; on macOS use Visual Studio Code; on Linux use Visual Studio Code. The text file that tells a web page how to look.
- What is a .css file?
- Cascading Style Sheet. CSS holds the rules — colours, fonts, spacing, layout — applied to HTML elements, and is a W3C standard. It is plain text you can read and edit in anything, and it does nothing on its own: opening a .css file in a browser shows the source, not a page.
- Can I convert a .css file?
- Yes. It is usually converted to .scss, .less or .txt, either by exporting from one of the programs listed above or with a format converter.
Related pages
- .html — HyperText Markup Language A web page — plain text marked up with tags, rendered by any browser.
- .js — JavaScript Source The programming language of the web, in a plain-text file.
- .py — Python Source A Python program in plain text — needs the Python interpreter to run.
- .java — Java Source Java source code in plain text, compiled to .class files before it runs.
- .tsx — TypeScript Source (JSX) TypeScript with embedded JSX markup — the standard file type for React component
- .cpp — C++ Source Source code in C++, the language of games, browsers and performance-critical sof
- .php — PHP Source Server-side web code — it runs on the server, so browsers never see the source.
- .c — C Source Source code in C, the language most operating systems are written in.
- .cs — C# Source Source code in C#, Microsoft's language for .NET and Unity games.
- .go — Go Source Source code in Go, Google's language for servers and command-line tools.
- .rs — Rust Source Source code in Rust, a systems language with memory safety enforced at compile t
- .rb — Ruby Source Source code in Ruby, the language behind Rails and Homebrew.
Sources
- Media Types Registry — IANA
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place