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On this page there are 8 sections

Emmet in Visual Studio Code

Support for Emmet snippets and expansion is built right into Visual Studio Code, no extension required. Emmet 2.0 has support for the majority of the Emmet Actions including expanding Emmet abbreviations and snippets.

How to expand Emmet abbreviations and snippets

Emmet abbreviation and snippet expansions are enabled by default in html, haml, pug, slim, jsx, xml, xsl, css, scss, sass, less and stylus files, as well as any language that inherits from any of the above like handlebars and php.

When you start typing an Emmet abbreviation, you will see the abbreviation displayed in the suggestion list. If you have the suggestion documentation fly-out open, you will see a preview of the expansion as you type. If you are in a stylesheet file, the expanded abbreviation shows up in the suggestion list sorted among the other CSS suggestions.

Using Tab for Emmet expansions

If you want to use the Tab key for expanding the Emmet abbreviations, add the following setting:

"emmet.showExpandedAbbreviation": "never"

You can still use the command Emmet: Expand Abbreviation to expand your abbreviations. You can also bind any keyboard shortcut to the command id editor.emmet.action.expandAbbreviation as well.

Emmet suggestion ordering

To ensure Emmet suggestions are always on top in the suggestion list, add the following settings:

"emmet.includeLanguages": { "javascript": "javascriptreact", "razor": "html", "plaintext": "pug" }

Emmet has no knowledge of these new languages, and so there might be Emmet suggestions showing up in non HTML/CSS contexts. To avoid this, you can use the following setting.

"emmet.syntaxProfiles": { "html": { "filters": "bem" } }

To provide a filter for just the current abbreviation, append the filter to your abbreviation. For example, div#page|c will apply the comment filter to the div#page abbreviation.

BEM filter (bem)

If you use the Block Element Modifier (BEM) way of writing HTML, then bem filters are very handy for you to use. To learn more about how to use bem filters, read BEM filter in Emmet.

You can customize this filter by using the bem.elementSeparator and bem.modifierSeparator preferences as documented in Emmet Preferences.

Comment filter (c)

This filter adds comments around important tags. By default, "important tags" are those tags with id and/or class attribute.

For example div>div#page>p.title+p|c will be expanded to:

"emmet.preferences": { "filter.commentAfter": "\n" }

in VS Code, you would use a simpler:

" }

Trim filter (t)

This filter is applicable only when providing abbreviations for the Emmet: Wrap with Abbreviation command. It removes line markers from wrapped lines.

Using custom Emmet snippets

Custom Emmet snippets need to be defined in a json file named snippets.json. The emmet.extensionsPath Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders setting should have the path to the directory containing this file.

Below is an example for the contents of this snippets.json file.

li[id=${1} class=${2}]*2{ Will work with html, pug, haml and slim }", "oll": "<ol><li id=${1} class=${2}> Will only work in html </ol>", "ran": "{ Wrap plain text in curly braces }" } }, "css": { "snippets": { "cb": "color: black", "bsd": "border: 1px solid ${1:red}", "ls": "list-style: ${1}" } } }

Authoring of Custom Snippets in Emmet 2.0 via the snippets.json file differs from the old way of doing the same in a few ways:

Topic Old Emmet Emmet 2.0

Snippets vs Abbreviations	Supports both in 2 separate properties called snippets and abbreviations	The 2 have been combined into a single property called snippets. See default HTML snippets and CSS snippets
CSS snippet names	Can contain :	Do not use : when defining snippet names. It is used to separate property name and value when Emmet tries to fuzzy match the given abbreviation to one of the snippets.
CSS snippet values	Can end with ;	Do not add ; at end of snippet value. Emmet will add the trailing ; based on the file type (css/less/scss vs sass/stylus) or the emmet preference set for css.propertyEnd, sass.propertyEnd, stylus.propertyEnd
Cursor location	${cursor} or \| can be used	Use only textmate syntax like ${1} for tab stops and cursor locations

HTML Emmet snippets

HTML custom snippets are applicable to all other markup flavors like haml or pug. When snippet value is an abbreviation and not actual HTML, the appropriate transformations can be applied to get the right output as per the language type.

For example, for an unordered list with a list item, if your snippet value is ul>li, you can use the same snippet in html, haml, pug or slim, but if your snippet value is <ul><li></li></ul>, then it will work only in html files.

If you want a snippet for plain text, then surround the text with {}.

CSS Emmet snippets

Values for CSS Emmet snippets should be a complete property name and value pair.

CSS custom snippets are applicable to all other stylesheet flavors like scss, less or sass. Therefore, don't include a trailing ; at the end of the snippet value. Emmet will add it as needed based on whether the language requires it.

Do not use : in the snippet name. : is used to separate property name and value when Emmet tries to fuzzy match the abbreviation to one of the snippets.

Tab stops and cursors in custom snippets

The syntax for tab stops in custom Emmet snippets follows the Textmate snippets syntax.

Use ${1}, ${2} for tab stops and ${1:placeholder} for tab stops with placeholders.
Previously, | or ${cursor} was used to denote the cursor location in the custom Emmet snippet. This is no longer supported. Use ${1} instead.

Emmet configuration

Below are Emmet settings that you can use to customize your Emmet experience in VS Code.

emmet.includeLanguages Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders

Use this setting to add mapping between the language of your choice and one of the Emmet supported languages to enable Emmet in the former using the syntax of the latter. Make sure to use language IDs for both sides of the mapping.

For example:
"emmet.syntaxProfiles": { "html": { "attr_quotes": "single" }, "jsx": { "self_closing_tag": true } }
emmet.variables Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders

Customize variables used by Emmet snippets.

For example:
"emmet.preferences": { "filter.commentAfter": "\n" }
you would use
" }
If you want support for any of the other preferences as documented in Emmet Preferences, please log a feature request.

Next steps

Emmet is just one of the great web developer features in VS Code. Read on to find out about:

HTML - VS Code supports HTML with IntelliSense, closing tags, and formatting.
CSS - We offer rich support for CSS, SCSS and Less.

Troubleshooting

Custom tags do not get expanded in the suggestion list

Custom tags when used in an expression like MyTag>YourTag or MyTag.someclass do show up in the suggestion list. But when these are used on their own like MyTag, they do not appear in the suggestion list. This is designed so to avoid noise in the suggestion list as every word is a potential custom tag.

Add the following setting to enable expanding of Emmet abbreviations using tab which will expand custom tags in all cases.