Question 1

What is a JSON formatter?

Accepted Answer

A JSON formatter (also called a JSON beautifier) takes minified or poorly formatted JSON and adds proper indentation and line breaks to make it human-readable. Formly's formatter also validates the JSON and shows syntax errors with line numbers.

Question 2

What's the difference between format and minify?

Accepted Answer

Format adds whitespace and indentation for readability. Minify removes all whitespace to produce the smallest possible JSON string — useful for APIs and data transfer.

Question 3

Does it show where JSON errors are?

Accepted Answer

Yes — when your JSON has syntax errors, the validator shows the exact error message from the JavaScript parser, which typically includes the line and character position of the error.

Question 4

Is there a file size limit?

Accepted Answer

The formatter works with JSON of any size in the browser. For extremely large files (>10MB), performance may vary depending on your browser.

JSON Formatter & Validator