There are many CSS tools available that claim to make a designer’s life easier. Many are as simple as ‘point and click’ and others need a little CSS code experience to gain the full benefits. Either way, if you are new to CSS or struggling with your web page template, then first consider these 5 tools I shall review here.
Dreamweaver CSS4 users will be accustomed to a set of CSS tools being available. Coders like to reduce their development time as much as possible particularly freelancers whom have deadlines to meet or they risk not being paid. In these situations a non-compatible template causing browser display issues can damage a project life cycle.
If you’re a designer and need a handy toolset for CSS work, these useful tools will keep your creativity flowing and not place you in design hell.
1. CSS Typeset
This tool is great for formatting your text and adding the needed styles to your existing CSS code. It is so easy to use, just select the font size, color, font family with the mouse, and copy and paste the CSS code generated into your web page tags or external CSS file.
2. Psd2css online
This one is bit of a ground breaker in the CSS world and is attracting very positive appraisals from designers globally. One huge restriction for designers whom know how to style a logo or shape a webpage but struggle to write hard code is to create a web template with the least amount of fuss. It can be costly if you have to outsource all your coding tasks because you find coding a bit of a challenge. With this tool, you will gain an easy transition from Photoshop design to web page. Photoshop has long been criticized for not producing clean code and since CSS utilizes clean code as its core function, this tool solves a great number of issues. All you need to do is create an account, upload your Photoshop PSD file, and the tool will generate a dynamic CSS web page in seconds. Use it for menus, galleries, templates and entire web sites.
3. Sky CSS Tool
Writing CSS is all about classes that style the parts of a web page. This tool allows you to set up classes that style your text, tables, images, etc for use in your CSS code. It reduces the time spent creating classes for paragraphs and headers allowing you to cut your development time.
4. Meta Titan CSS Builder
Like the Sky CSS Tool, this one allows you to shorten your development time by generating the needed code for your web page CSS on the fly. The clever aspect here is that you can create a set of classes for an entire web site so if code is a challenge for you and there is a need to customize your current code, this is the tool to use.
5. CSS Tab Designer
Ok, this is the fifth tool I chose, and unlike the tools above, this one needs to be downloaded – a whopping 1.35 mb….no worries there! Even if it was 135mb, I would recommend downloading this one due to its sheer styling ability. You can create CSS based tabbed menus in no time that look very professional.
So, those are the 5 tools that are worth your time. When choosing any tool, think about the project cycle time, where your best skills will offer value and where your weaker skills could create challenges. Maintain a balance if you must by outsourcing parts of your project as a freelancer. I do recommend that if you are a lone wolf, or even based inside a corporate design department to take a peek at these tools as time is money. Even if you are an amazing programmer, nothing is faster than ‘point and click’.
