Scriptm is a free tool for optimizing one or more CSS and JavaScript files. The program isn't doing anything dramatic - just stripping out white space, comments and other surplus characters - but it can significantly reduce file size, and help to improve website performance.

The program is easy enough to use. Drag and drop your source folder or files onto Scriptm, the .JS and .CSS files are listed, and you could just click the Optimize button right away. The minified versions are saved within a few seconds as separate files (original.css > original.min.css), so you don't have to worry about the originals being overwritten.

Scriptm reports both the original and new files, and displays how much you've saved. This initially seemed very impressive on our test PC, with reports like "83% decrease", but it's a little misleading. The figure relates to the finished file size, not the saving, so "83% decrease" actually meant our file was 17% smaller. But once you understand that, it's not a problem, and there are useful savings to be had.

If you don't trust the batch conversion - or it's not convenient for your workflow - then there's also a "Real Time" mode. Drag and drop or paste your source code, process it with the Minify or JavaScript Beautify options, and the results are displayed immediately. You're able to browse the results, save or copy them to the clipboard for instant reuse elsewhere.