Sass makes CSS fun again. Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It’s translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command line tool or a web-framework plugin.

Sass has two syntaxes. The most commonly used syntax is known as “SCSS” (for “Sassy CSS”), and is a superset of CSS3’s syntax. This means that every valid CSS3 stylesheet is valid SCSS as well. SCSS files use the extension .scss.

The second, older syntax is known as the indented syntax (or just “.sass”). Inspired by Haml’s terseness, it’s intended for people who prefer conciseness over similarity to CSS. Instead of brackets and semicolons, it uses the indentation of lines to specify blocks. Files in the indented syntax use the extension .sass.

While the documentation on this site is mostly in the SCSS syntax, both syntaxes are fully supported – there is no functional difference between them. Use the syntax you prefer.

Variables

Use the same color all over the place? Need to do some math with height and width and text size? Sass supports variables as well as basic math operations and many useful functions. 

// SCSS

$blue: #3bbfce;
$margin: 16px;

.content-navigation {
  border-color: $blue;
  color:
    darken($blue, 9%);
}

.border {
  padding: $margin / 2;
  margin: $margin / 2;
  border-color: $blue;
}

$blue: #3bbfce
$margin: 16px

.content-navigation
  border-color: $blue
  color: darken($blue, 9%)

.border
  padding: $margin / 2
  margin: $margin / 2
  border-color: $blue

/* CSS */

.content-navigation {
  border-color: #3bbfce;
  color: #2b9eab;
}

.border {
  padding: 8px;
  margin: 8px;
  border-color: #3bbfce;
}

Nesting

Sass avoids repetition by nesting selectors within one another. The same thing works with properties. 

// SCSS

table.hl {
  margin: 2em 0;
  td.ln {
    text-align: right;
  }
}

li {
  font: {
    family: serif;
    weight: bold;
    size: 1.2em;
  }
}

table.hl
  margin: 2em 0
  td.ln
    text-align: right

li
  font:
    family: serif
    weight: bold
    size: 1.2em

/* CSS */

table.hl {
  margin: 2em 0;
}
table.hl td.ln {
  text-align: right;
}

li {
  font-family: serif;
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 1.2em;
}

Mixins

Even more useful than variables, mixins allow you to re-use whole chunks of CSS, properties or selectors. You can even give them arguments. 

// SCSS

@mixin table-base {
  th {
    text-align: center;
    font-weight: bold;
  }
  td, th {padding: 2px}
}

@mixin left($dist) {
  float: left;
  margin-left: $dist;
}

#data {
  @include left(10px);
  @include table-base;
}

@mixin table-base
  th
    text-align: center
    font-weight: bold
  td, th
    padding: 2px

@mixin left($dist)
  float: left
  margin-left: $dist

#data
  @include left(10px)
  @include table-base

/* CSS */

#data {
  float: left;
  margin-left: 10px;
}
#data th {
  text-align: center;
  font-weight: bold;
}
#data td, #data th {
  padding: 2px;
}

Selector Inheritance

Sass can tell one selector to inherit all the styles of another without duplicating the CSS properties. 

// SCSS

.error {
  border: 1px #f00;
  background: #fdd;
}
.error.intrusion {
  font-size: 1.3em;
  font-weight: bold;
}

.badError {
  @extend .error;
  border-width: 3px;
}

.error
  border: 1px #f00
  background: #fdd

.error.intrusion
  font-size: 1.3em
  font-weight: bold

.badError
  @extend .error
  border-width: 3px

/* CSS */

.error, .badError {
  border: 1px #f00;
  background: #fdd;
}

.error.intrusion,
.badError.intrusion {
  font-size: 1.3em;
  font-weight: bold;
}

.badError {
  border-width: 3px;
}