🎨 CSS Grid Areas Generator
Paint grid cells to build a CSS grid-template-areas layout visually — name your regions, draw the grid, and copy production-ready CSS and HTML.
About this tool
An interactive builder for CSS Grid layouts using grid-template-areas. Paint cells on a grid to define named regions like header, sidebar, or main, and the tool generates the matching CSS — including the grid-template-areas declaration, area assignments, and the HTML structure — ready to paste into your project.
Example: a 3×3 grid painted as header header header / nav main aside / footer footer footer produces a classic Holy Grail layout. A 2×2 grid with sidebar main / sidebar main creates a fixed sidebar with a matching content area.
Useful for building page shells, dashboards, card layouts, and any structure where you need precise two-dimensional placement. The live preview shows exactly how the browser renders your areas, and rectangle validation catches invalid shapes before you copy.
FAQ
What is grid-template-areas? ›
It is a CSS property that lets you name grid regions using a visual syntax. Instead of placing items by line numbers, you draw the layout as quoted strings of area names, making complex layouts readable and easy to maintain.
How do I make an area span multiple columns or rows? ›
Paint the same area name across multiple adjacent cells. For example, painting "header" across all three cells in the first row makes it span the full width. The tool validates that each area forms a solid rectangle.
Why does my area show a validation error? ›
CSS requires each named area to form a single solid rectangle with no gaps or L-shapes. If you paint the same name in non-adjacent cells or leave a hole in the middle, the tool flags it. Fix the shape by erasing or repainting cells until the area is rectangular.
Can I use this with media queries for responsive layouts? ›
Yes. Copy the generated CSS and override grid-template-areas inside a media query block. For example, stack all areas in a single column on mobile by redefining each row to contain one area name.
What's the difference between this and the CSS Grid Layout Builder? ›
This tool focuses on named template areas — paint cells to define header, sidebar, main, footer regions and the tool generates grid-template-areas CSS. The CSS Grid Layout Builder works with columns, rows, gaps, and item placement using sliders and presets, outputting grid-template-columns and grid-template-rows. Use this for page shells and named layouts; use the Builder for uniform grids like photo galleries and card decks.