--- title: Compass Help crumb: Help classnames: - help - getting-started layout: site --- %article %h1 Getting started with Compass :markdown Compass is an open-source CSS authoring framework which uses the [Sass stylesheet language](http://sass-lang.com) to make writing stylesheets powerful and easy. If you're not familiar with Sass, you can take a look at [these simple tutorials](http://sass-lang.com/tutorial.html) to get caught up. <object width="700" height="438"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11671458&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11671458&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="700" height="438"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11671458">An introduction to Compass</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/ltackett">Lorin Tackett</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> :markdown ## Installing Compass Compass is a tool that runs on the command line. On any system with ruby installed, open your terminal and type: gem install compass This will install Compass and Sass too. If you want to verify that compass is installed: compass version ## Manual Setup compass create /path/to/project cd /path/to/project compass watch Now you can edit the `*.scss` files in the `sass` directory with the text editor of your choice. the `compass watch` process will automatically compile your them into css in the stylesheets directory whenever they change. The files in the `sass` directory are yours and you can change them, delete them, add new ones, etc. ## Manual setup using the Blueprint Framework When starting a project from scrath: compass create /path/to/project --using blueprint When installing into an existing project: cd /path/to/project compass install blueprint To read more about using the Blueprint framework with Compass, [see the docs](/reference/blueprint/) ## Rails Setup compass init rails /path/to/myrailsproject Using Blueprint with Rails: compass init rails /path/to/myrailsproject --using blueprint