JavaScript Formatter & Beautifier

How to Use the JavaScript Formatter

1. Paste your JavaScript code into the left input panel
2. Configure your preferred formatting options: indentation type, size, brace style, and semicolon preference
3. Click "Beautify JS" to format your code with proper structure and indentation
4. Click "Minify JS" to compress your code for production deployment
5. Review the output in the right panel, which shows character and line counts
6. Click "Copy Output" to copy the formatted or minified code to your clipboard
7. Use "Load Sample" to see a demonstration of the formatting capabilities

What is JavaScript Formatting?

JavaScript formatting, also called code beautification or pretty-printing, is the process of restructuring source code to improve its readability without changing its functionality. When JavaScript is minified for production use, all whitespace, comments, and unnecessary characters are stripped out to reduce file size. While this is great for performance, it makes the code nearly impossible for humans to read and debug. A JavaScript formatter reverses this process, adding consistent indentation, line breaks after statements, spaces around operators, and proper alignment of code blocks. This makes the code much easier to understand, maintain, debug, and collaborate on with other developers.

Features of This Formatter

• Modern ES6+ Support: Handles arrow functions, template literals, destructuring, spread operators, classes, modules, async/await, and other modern JavaScript features
• Customizable Indentation: Choose between spaces or tabs, and set your preferred indent size from 1 to 8 characters
• Brace Style Options: Keep opening braces on the same line as statements (K&R style) or place them on new lines (Allman style)
• Semicolon Control: Automatically add semicolons or preserve the code's original semicolon style
• JSON Support: Also works with JSON data, formatting it with proper indentation for easy reading
• Minification: Compress code for production by removing whitespace and shortening variable names where safe

Why Format Your JavaScript?

Code formatting is essential for professional software development. Consistent formatting makes code reviews faster and more effective because reviewers can focus on logic rather than style. It reduces cognitive load when reading code, allowing developers to understand program flow more quickly. Formatted code also produces cleaner version control diffs, making it easier to see exactly what changed between commits. Many teams enforce formatting standards using tools like Prettier or ESLint, and this online formatter allows you to quickly format code snippets without installing any software. Whether you are debugging minified library code, reformatting legacy code, or cleaning up quick scripts, proper formatting saves time and prevents errors.

Minification for Production

While formatted code is ideal for development, production deployments benefit from minified JavaScript. Minification removes all unnecessary characters including whitespace, newlines, and comments. Advanced minifiers also rename variables to shorter names, remove dead code, and optimize certain patterns. The result is a smaller file that downloads faster and executes efficiently. This tool provides basic minification that removes whitespace and comments while preserving all functionality. For production applications, consider using build tools like Webpack, Rollup, or esbuild that integrate more sophisticated minification during the build process.