Why merging CSS generates 2 or more file, not a single file?

Question

when i enable

Merge CSS Files -> Yes

magento generates 3 css files , why it can't generate as a single css file

is there any way to achieve this?

Answer 1

This normally happens when specific CSS files get loaded for certain routes.

For instance if we look at catalog_product_view

<catalog_product_view translate="label">
    ...
    <reference name="head">
        ...
        <action method="addItem"><type>js_css</type><name>calendar/calendar-win2k-1.css</name><params/></action>
        ...
     </reference>
    ...
</catalog_product_view>

In this case a newly generated merged file is created especaily for pages with the catalog_product_view tag. If you want to prevent this you should load all CSS under default.

Using the Magento merge CSS is debateable. I would advice you looking into grunt or gulp and have them merge and minify everthing. This way you can ensure that there will always be a correct CSS file.