lessc binary not available after installing less via NPM

Question

I went ahead and installed and tested node.js and then I installed LESS CSS via NPM but when I type in the command

lessc styles.less

or

Answer 1

When you install LESS via npm use the -g option to install it globally.

npm install -g less

Answer 2

When installing packages with npm you have two options:

1. Install them globally: npm install -g <package>
2. Install locally in your home directory under ~/.npm: npm install <package>

If you choose option 1 your system should be able to locate the binary lessc. If you choose option 2 you should add ~/.npm/less/path_to_bin_directory to your path:

export PATH=~/.npm/less/path_to_bin_directory:$PATH

or better, if a ~/node_modules directory has been created as a result of installation:

export PATH=~/node_modules/less/path_to_bin_directory:$PATH