Compiling LESS Stylesheets to CSS

When editing LESS files, you can compile the files into CSS. Oxygen XML Editor provides both manual and automatic options to compile LESS stylesheets into CSS.

Important: The LESS processor works well only with files having the UTF-8 encoding. Thus, it is highly recommended that you always use the utf-8 encoding when working with LESS files or the files they import (other LESS or CSS files). You can use the following directive at the beginning of your files:

@charset "utf-8";

You have two options for compiling LESS files to CSS:

Use the contextual menu in a LESS file and select Compile to CSS (Ctrl Shift C (Meta Shift C on OS X)).
Enable the option Automatically compile LESS to CSS when saving in the settings. To do so, open the Preferences dialog box and go to Editor > Open > Save > Save hooks. If enabled, when you save a LESS file it will automatically be compiled to CSS (this option is disabled by default).
Important: If this option is enabled, when you save a LESS file, the CSS file that has the same name as the LESS file is overwritten without warning. Make sure all your changes are made in the LESS file. Do not edit the CSS file directly, as your changes might be lost.