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Getting Started with Tailwind CSS: A comprehensive guide

Hello readers, let's begin by understanding Tailwind CSS step by step.
In this article, we will discuss the introduction and installation of Tailwind CSS. In the next article, we will continue with the tutorial.

Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that makes website design easy without writing custom CSS. It provides low-level CSS utilities that you can combine to build any design you can imagine.

Why Choose Tailwind CSS?

  • Rapid Development: Build user interfaces quickly by adding utility classes directly to your HTML.

  • Consistent Styling: Maintain a consistent look and feel across your entire project.

  • Reusability: Tailwind CSS provides meaningful class names that are easy to remember, making it simple to reuse them.

  • Learn Once, Use Anywhere: The core concepts of Tailwind CSS are transferable across different frontend frameworks such as NextJS, React, Vue, and Angular.

  • Purge Styles - Keep Only Necessary CSS: Tailwind CSS uses a purge mechanism that removes unused CSS from your final build, ensuring your project includes only the necessary styles.

Getting Started

  1. Installation

Using npm: npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer
Using yarn: yarn add -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer

2: Configuration

Create a tailwind.config.js file at the root of your project with the following content:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
    module.exports = {
    content: [
        "./index.html", 
        "./src/**/*.{vue,js,ts,jsx,tsx}", 
    ],
    theme: {
          extend: {},
    },
    plugins: [],
    }

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Important: Update the content array to include the paths to all the HTML files and components where you'll be using Tailwind CSS classes.

3: Generate CSS

npx tailwindcss init -p

This will create a postcss.config.js file and update your package.json with the necessary scripts.

4: Start Using Tailwind CSS

Add Tailwind CSS classes directly to your HTML elements

<div class="bg-blue-500 text-white p-4"> 
  Hello, Tailwind!
</div>
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Next Steps

Explore the official Tailwind CSS documentation for a comprehensive list of available utilities.

Discover Tailwind CSS Component Library

There are many websites that offer ready-to-use UI components.
Just search on Google for "prebuilt Tailwind components."

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