Less Commands

To install Less on the server via NPM:

To invoke the compiler from the command-line, after installing Less:

To compile the Less file and generate CSS:

To get minified CSS as output, you can use the clean-css plugin. After the installation of that plgin, a minified CSS output is specified with --clean-css option:

To get CSS output on Console:

Syntax:

var less = require('less');
less.render('.class { width: (1 + 1) }', function (e, output) {
  console.log(output.css);
});

Output:

.class {
  width: 2;
}

Pass options to the compiler:

Syntax:

var less = require('less');
Less.render('.class { width: (1 + 1) }',
    {
      paths: ['.', './lib'],  // Specify search paths for @import directives
      filename: 'style.Less', // Specify a filename, for better error messages
      compress: true          // Minify CSS output
    },
    function (e, output) {
       console.log(output.css);
    }); 

Important Tips:

You must include your stylesheets before your script.
When you link more than one .Less stylesheet each of them is compiled independently. So variables, mixins or namespaces which are defined in a stylesheet are not accessible in any other.

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