DEV Community

Cover image for Set up Tailwind in your Project
Jyotirmoy Barman
Jyotirmoy Barman

Posted on Edited on Originally published at jyotirmoy.hashnode.dev

Set up Tailwind in your Project

Tailwind CSS is a utility class framework that helps you make a responsive web design. In this article, I will teach you, how to set up a tailwind in the project.

Play CDN ( Method 1)

This is the easiest way to use Tailwind, but it is not recommended for a production application. <script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com"></script> inside the <head> tag.

An Internet connection is required!

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <h1 class="text-3xl font-bold underline">
    Hello world!
  </h1>
</body>
</html>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Tailwind CLI ( Method 2 )

Tailwind CLI is a tool to quickly set up your project a generate required styling automatically. First You need to install node.js on your computer. After you have installed Node.js creates a folder (Tailwind-Project) and run the below command on your terminal.

Internet connection is not required after you have done the setup once!

mkdir Tailwind-Project
cd Tailwind-Project
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
npm install -D tailwindcss
npx tailwindcss init
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

After you have run the above command you will see a tailwind.config.js file in your folder.

➜  Tailwind-Project tree
.
└── tailwind.config.js

0 directories, 1 file
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Create a src folder inside Tailwind-Project and add your HTML, CSS, and Javascript files inside it.

bash
➜  Tailwind-Project tree
.
├── src
│   ├── input.css
│   ├── main.html
│   └── main.js
└── tailwind.config.js

1 directory, 4 files
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now it is time for configuring tailwind.config.js you will something just like this in the code.

javascript
module.exports = {
  content: [],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Replace or Rewrite the code with this ↓. Here are adding the paths to all of your template files in your tailwind.config.js file.

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  content: ["./src/**/*.{html,js}"],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Open the input.css file and paste the below lines.

@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now run this command to start the Tailwind CLI build process, it will generate a file under a /dist/output.css , and here is the file which will contain all your CSS styling.

npx tailwindcss -i ./src/input.css -o ./dist/output.css --watch
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now you will see something just like this.

warn - The `content` option in your Tailwind CSS configuration is missing or empty.
warn - Configure your content sources or your generated CSS will be missing styles.
warn - https://tailwindcss.com/docs/content-configuration
Browserslist: caniuse-lite is outdated. Please run:
  npx browserslist@latest --update-db
  Why you should do it regularly: https://github.com/browserslist/browserslist#browsers-data-updating

Rebuilding...
Done in 88ms.
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now the project structure should see like this. Here you will see a new file under the folder dist the file name will be output.css. This is a file that we need to insert into our HTML.

➜  Tailwind-Project tree
.
├── dist
│   └── output.css
├── src
│   ├── input.css
│   ├── main.html
│   └── main.js
└── tailwind.config.js

2 directories, 5 files
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Paste the below command into your HTML file (main.html). The line <link href="/dist/output.css" rel="stylesheet"> is the line that links output.css to main.html . Now you can write class can the Tailwind CLI will automatically build the CSS file.

xml
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <link href="/dist/output.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
  <h1 class="text-3xl font-bold underline">
    Hello world!
  </h1>
</body>
</html>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

To learn how to use Tailwind CSS head over to tailwindcss.com.

Follow me on Twitter Jyotirmoy Barman.

Top comments (0)