Minification is mostly used in web development and optimization. It is the process of reducing the size of files like CSS and JS by removing unnecessary characters and shortening variable names. The characters that are removed usually include whitespaces, comments, and newline ones.
Minifying code helps improve the speed and performance of a website. Now, there are a couple of ways this process can be carried out: manually and through automation. While some people might prefer manual minification, we personally don’t. It has chances of errors, is time-consuming, and you have to be extremely focused the whole time.
The easier and more accurate way is the automated one. In this article, we’ll teach you how to minify CSS and JavaScript using this way. So, without wasting any time, let’s get right into it.
Minifying CSS and JavaScript Using the Automated Way: Step-by-Step
Following are the steps to minify CSS and JS with ease.
Step # 1: Find a Reliable Minification Tool
There are many tools specifically built to automate the process of minification and make it easier for users. However, there’s a slight problem here. Since there are so many such tools available online, settling on one becomes a bit tricky.
You should always choose a reliable minification tool, one that is accurate, provides results quickly, and is safe to use. But how are you supposed to find one like that? Well, a good way to do that is by going to review websites like Trustpilot and G2 and looking at the user rating for multiple minification tools.
The one that has the highest rating is more than likely to possess all the aforementioned qualities and you can choose to use it.
If you don’t want to find a highly-rated tool yourself and just want to be done with the process, don’t worry as we got you. Minifier.org is a tool that we recommend to our readers. It is quick, reliable, and doesn’t store any of the user’s data. Having said that, we’ll be using this tool to provide demonstrations of the next steps.
Step # 2: Provide the CSS or JS Code to the Tool and Select the Language
Once the tool is selected, you have to provide it with the CSS or JavaScript code that you’d like to minify. Copy and paste it into the input box and check what language you’ve input from the two boxes below.
Once done, it should look something like this:
As can be seen, we input JavaScript and selected it from the two boxes.
Step # 3: Hit “Minify” and Wait for the Tool to Process Code
All that’s left to do now is hit the “Minify” button that’s provided by the tool and wait for the processing to complete. It doesn’t really take much, just a second or two at most. Once it is done, you’ll have a minified code on hand that you can copy or download on a text file and use anywhere.
Here’s the minified version of the JavaScript we provided the tool:
This is how easy the automated method of minifying a code is. Just 3 steps and you’re done in a couple of minutes max. If you did the same thing manually, it could’ve taken hours. While we just demonstrated minifying JS, the same can be done for CSS codes by using the said tool or any other one without hesitation.
Final Words
Minification is the process of reducing file sizes of codes in various languages. i.e. JS and CSS. The process is mainly used in web development and optimization. It has multiple benefits like speeding up a site and improving its performance.
There are two main ways to minify a code. You can either do it manually or automate the process. This article was all about the automated way and how you can minify code using it since it’s easier and quicker.
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