JSON is a wire format that humans regularly have to read. Configuration files, test fixtures, API request examples in documentation, debugging dumps, and committed seed data all benefit from formatting that humans can scan quickly. Minified JSON, where the entire document is on a single long line with no whitespace, is efficient for transport but hostile to review. A 200-element array with mixed nesting becomes one impenetrable string. Pretty-printed JSON keeps the same data but breaks it into lines and indents nested structures so the shape is visible at a glance.
FixTools uses a two-space indent because that matches the default for prettier, the de facto JavaScript formatter, and aligns with most style guides for JSON, YAML, and TypeScript. Two spaces is compact enough that deeply nested structures still fit reasonable line widths but wide enough that nesting levels are visually distinct. Four-space indent is also offered as an option for projects that prefer it. Tab indentation is supported for environments that use tabs for editor flexibility. The choice is one click in the converter settings.
Pretty-printed JSON also produces clean git diffs. When the underlying data changes, only the affected lines show up in the diff rather than the entire one-line minified blob. This makes code review of generated JSON files practical and lets you spot subtle changes that minified output would hide. Diff cleanliness is a substantial productivity win for teams that commit JSON fixtures, seeds, or configuration into version control.
For wire transport, minified is still the right choice because it reduces bytes by ten to twenty percent for typical JSON. FixTools offers a Minify toggle that compresses the output to a single line with no whitespace. The toggle is a post-conversion transformation, so you can switch back and forth without re-running the CSV parser. Most production APIs accept both formats interchangeably since JSON whitespace is not semantically meaningful.