How to use ::before and ::after in Tailwind CSS

In this article we are going to learn that how you can use ::before and ::after selectors in Tailwind CSS. If you don't know what Tailwind CSS is then you should look into it because it's just awesome. And trust me If you got used to it then you could not leave.

Now let's continue with this article. This feature is only available in Just-in-Time (JIT) mode. Tailwind has first-party support for styling pseudo-elements like before and after:

<div class="before:absolute before:bg-blue-500 after:flex after:bg-blue-300" ></div>

It has content: "" by default so you don't need to worry about that. Any time you use a before or after variant to make sure the elements are rendered, but you can override it using the content utilities which have full arbitrary value support:

<div class="before:content-['hello'] before:block ..."></div>

You can even grab the content from an attribute using the CSS attr() function:

<div
  before="hello world"
  class="before:content-[attr(before)] before:block ..."
></div>

This can be super helpful when your content has spaces in it since spaces can't be used in CSS class names. You can use mostly any property with before and after

Conclusion

Tailwind is the super awesome framework of CSS. According to me, it's the best so far. Everyone should learn it and it is very easy to learn and use. For more such articles consider a Follow.

Also Read

• Some Javascript Methods you should know
• 10 Git Commands everybody should know
• Convert Next.js app to PWA

Comments

[eduardoalmeidabr]

What if I want to use unicode like:

...

?

\f107: Font Awesome arrow down

[Emre Biberoğlu]

You can use before:content-['\f107']

[Raul]

Unfortunately, your article didn't help me. I still don't understand the usefulness of these selectors. I copied your code to see what it does but doesn't work. Why not given a working code?
Thank you

[chenqiaoda]

<div
class="relative mx-auto mt-20 h-96 w-96 rounded-lg bg-black shadow-md before:content-[''] before:absolute before:h-10 before:rounded-full before:w-10 before:bg-blue-300"
/>

[Jatin Sharma]

Here's the working code:

play.tailwindcss.com/hzprtkooCV

[Austin Ofor]

i was omitting this before:absolute and my before was not showing.

Thanks

[Ebubekir Yazgan]

You may have forgotten to give relative to the parent element.