Use Tailwind CSS to Style a Next.js Project

Tailwind CSS and Next.js are two very powerful tools in the web development industry today. When developers combine these together, it offers developers a flexible system for creating fast, responsive, and eye pleasing web applications.

In this blog, we are going to explore and understand how to integrate Tailwind CSS with Next.js, which will maximize the potential of both web technologies in your project.

Why Pair Next.js with Tailwind CSS?

Firstly, let us understand why to combine Next.js with Tailwind CSS? Next.js is React framework and has features like server side rendering and it can handle static site development. Which can improve both performance and SEO for your web apps.

On the other hand, Tailwind CSS is a user-friendly tool for styling web pages. Tailwind CSS allows users to use simple and pre developed style classes into your HTML, which helps you create custom designs quickly and effortlessly without needing complicated codes.

Combining Next.js’s powerful structure with Tailwind CSS’s easy styling tool makes web development quick and easy.

If you are building a web application in recent time, you will require an advanced toolkit. The combination of Next.js known for its simplicity and Tailwind CSS known for its flexible styling help you create very Scalable and effective projects.

How to set up Next.js project

To set up Next.js and Tailwind CSS firstly you would have to create a Next.js project. You can easily create it by running the command “ npx create - next - app ”, which will help set up everything you need to start with a new project for Next.js.

npx create-next-app my-nextjs-app
cd my-nextjs-app

Installing Tailwind CSS

After you complete set up the Next.js project your next step would be to install Tailwind CSS. To install the same you would require to type command as per below. First command below will install the latest version of Tailwind CSS, post css, and autoprefixer into your project. Second command below will initialise Tailwind CSS in your project and will also create configuration files.

npm install tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer

npx tailwindcss init -p

Tailwind CSS for Next.js configuration

Above all steps described how you would install Tailwind css. Now, we will see how you will set Tailwind css for Next.js project. To set up Tailwind for Next.js, open the Tailwind configuration file and add your templates in the content array. You can open the Tailwind configuration file with ” Tailwind.config.js ” and below is the code to add templates into your content array. Configuration below will basically ask Tailwind to look for classes into the specific directories and files.

module.exports = 
{
   content: [
 
   	'./pages/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}',
    	
'./components/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}',
    	
// Add more paths here if necessary
   
 ],
   
// Add other Tailwind CSS configuration options here

};

Now to use Tailwind css into your entire project you would require to add tailwind default styles into your global style sheet. Open the “ style/globals.css ” file in your project and add following lines of code to that file. This will help Tailwind styles to use in the entire project. 

@tailwind base;

@tailwind components;

@tailwind utilities;

Once css file has been updated go to app.js file and import the same css to it with “ import '../styles/globals.css' “

This will ensure that Tailwind styles are now applicable into your project and the entire app can use the styles.

Conclusion

Tailwind CSS combined with NEXT.js can significantly improve web development processes. Above steps will guide you how to set up and use Tailwind CSS in a Next.js project. Tailwind CSS fulfills the need of Next.js app by allowing a lot of customization. This is user friendly too for developers who are looking for more efficiency and wanting to work fast.