Milind Daraniya

Clean and Organized HTML: Installing Tidy on Ubuntu

Published October 12th, 2023 19 min read

Tidy is a powerful command-line tool that helps you clean up and format HTML documents. It's particularly useful for ensuring consistent and well-structured HTML code in web development projects. In this post, we'll guide you through the process of installing Tidy on an Ubuntu system, complete with an example of the installation output.

Step 1: Update Package Lists

Before installing any software, it's recommended to update your package lists:

sudo apt update

Step 2: Install Tidy

Now, let's install Tidy using the package manager:

sudo apt install tidy

Step 3: Verify the Installation

Once the installation is complete, you can verify that Tidy is successfully installed by checking its version:

tidy -v

Example Output:

After running the tidy -v command, you might see an output similar to the following:

HTML Tidy for Linux version 5.6.0

Using Tidy to Clean Up HTML:

Let's assume you have an HTML file called index.html that needs to be cleaned up. You can use Tidy to format the HTML code and fix any errors:

tidy -m -i index.html

In this example:

  • -m indicates that Tidy should modify the file in place.
  • -i tells Tidy to create a clean and indented version of the HTML.

Benefits of Using Tidy on Ubuntu

Consistent Formatting: Tidy ensures that your HTML code follows consistent and proper formatting rules, making it easier to read and maintain.

Error Detection: Tidy helps identify and fix errors in your HTML code, ensuring that your web pages are well-structured and valid.

Accessibility: Tidy can assist in improving the accessibility of your web content by identifying and correcting accessibility issues.

Compatibility: Clean and well-formatted HTML is more likely to render correctly across different browsers and devices.

By installing Tidy on your Ubuntu system, you'll have a valuable tool at your disposal for maintaining clean and organized HTML code, ultimately enhancing the quality of your web development projects.