LESS CSS on Windows

css windows ruby less
Mojave Storm picture Mojave Storm · Jun 7, 2010 · Viewed 55.3k times · Source

Trying to set up LESS for CSS on my Windows box, I've installed ruby and rubygems and followed the instructions exactly.

I have put teststyle.less in C:\.
When I type

lessc teststyle.less

to compile it into a .css file, I get an error:

The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

Out of those familiar with LESS, do any of you have a solution to my problem?
Did I mess up the install?

Answer

Timur picture Timur · Aug 28, 2012

If you don't want to use GUI to compile LESS on Windows, there is a clean way to get lessc command on Windows command line. It only requires you to install node.js, which is required by original lessc anyway.

So, install node.js (http://nodejs.org/) and install "less" module for node.js. The latter provides lessc executable (lessc.cmd on Windows) as well, so you should only make sure it gets under your PATH in Windows.

If you don't have node.js yet, here are step-by-step instructions:

  • Install node.js (http://nodejs.org/)
  • In new command-line, go to node.js installation directory (where node.exe is located), and execute > npm install less (make sure you do so from node.js installation directory only)
  • Latter downloads less module for node.js, as well as lessc.cmd to node_modules/.bin/ directory. Add this directory to PATH
  • Now, in new command line you may enjoy the use of lessc as usual

Source: http://pragmatictim.blogspot.fr/2012/08/developing-with-less-on-windows-getting.html

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