@tailwindcss/typography

What is @tailwindcss/typography?

The @tailwindcss/typography plugin provides a set of prose classes that you can use to add beautiful typographic defaults to any vanilla HTML you don't control, like HTML rendered from Markdown, or pulled from a CMS. It's designed to make the text in your applications look good out of the box.

What are @tailwindcss/typography's main functionalities?

Prose styling

Automatically styles the text within the <article> tag according to the Tailwind Typography defaults. The 'prose' class applies base styles, and 'lg:prose-xl' applies larger styles at the 'lg' breakpoint and above.

<article class='prose lg:prose-xl'>...</article>

Customizing Typography

Allows customization of the default typography styles. In this example, the base text color is set to '#333', and anchor (<a>) tags are styled with a default color of '#3178c6', which changes to '#0550ae' on hover.

theme: { extend: { typography: { DEFAULT: { css: { color: '#333', a: { color: '#3178c6', '&:hover': { color: '#0550ae', }, }, }, }, }, }, },

Dark mode support

Enables dark mode styles within the <article> tag when the parent or root element has the 'dark' class. The 'prose-dark' class applies dark mode styles to the text.

<article class='prose dark:prose-dark'>...</article>

Other packages similar to @tailwindcss/typography

typography

A powerful toolkit for building websites with beautiful design. Typography.js provides a set of themes and plugins to manage typography in CSS-in-JS applications. It differs from @tailwindcss/typography by offering a more JavaScript-centric approach, allowing for dynamic theme adjustments and integration with React components.

mdx-deck

A tool for creating presentation decks using MDX (Markdown + JSX), which allows for the use of JSX components within markdown. While not a direct competitor to @tailwindcss/typography, mdx-deck can be used to style markdown content for presentations and includes its own set of themes and layouts for typography. It's more specialized for presentation purposes compared to the broad HTML content styling offered by @tailwindcss/typography.

README

The official Tailwind CSS Typography plugin provides a set of prose classes you can use to add beautiful typographic defaults to any vanilla HTML you don’t control, like HTML rendered from Markdown, or pulled from a CMS.

<article class="prose lg:prose-xl">{{ markdown }}</article>

To see what it looks like in action, check out our live demo on Tailwind Play.

---

Installation

Install the plugin from npm:

npm install -D @tailwindcss/typography

Then add the plugin to your tailwind.config.js file:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    // ...
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography'),
    // ...
  ],
}

---

Basic usage

Now you can use the prose classes to add sensible typography styles to any vanilla HTML:

<article class="prose lg:prose-xl">
  <h1>Garlic bread with cheese: What the science tells us</h1>
  <p>
    For years parents have espoused the health benefits of eating garlic bread with cheese to their
    children, with the food earning such an iconic status in our culture that kids will often dress
    up as warm, cheesy loaf for Halloween.
  </p>
  <p>
    But a recent study shows that the celebrated appetizer may be linked to a series of rabies cases
    springing up around the country.
  </p>
  <!-- ... -->
</article>

Choosing a gray scale

This plugin includes a modifier class for each of the five gray scales Tailwind includes by default so you can easily style your content to match the grays you're using in your project.

<article class="prose prose-slate">{{ markdown }}</article>

Here are the classes that are generated using a totally default Tailwind CSS v2.0 build:

Class	Gray scale
prose-gray (default)	Gray
prose-slate	Slate
prose-zinc	Zinc
prose-neutral	Neutral
prose-stone	Stone

Modifier classes are designed to be used with the multi-class modifier pattern and must be used in conjunction with the base prose class.

[!NOTE] Always include the prose class when adding a gray scale modifier

<article class="prose prose-stone">{{ markdown }}</article>

To learn about creating your own color themes, read the adding custom color themes documentation.

Applying a type scale

Size modifiers allow you to adjust the overall size of your typography for different contexts.

<article class="prose prose-xl">{{ markdown }}</article>

Five different typography sizes are included out of the box:

Class	Body font size
prose-sm	0.875rem (14px)
prose-base (default)	1rem (16px)
prose-lg	1.125rem (18px)
prose-xl	1.25rem (20px)
prose-2xl	1.5rem (24px)

These can be used in combination with Tailwind's breakpoint modifiers to change the overall font size of a piece of content at different viewport sizes:

<article class="prose md:prose-lg lg:prose-xl">{{ markdown }}</article>

Everything about the provided size modifiers has been hand-tuned by professional designers to look as beautiful as possible, including the relationships between font sizes, heading spacing, code block padding, and more.

Size modifiers are designed to be used with the multi-class modifier pattern and must be used in conjunction with the base prose class.

[!NOTE] Always include the prose class when adding a size modifier

<article class="prose prose-lg">{{ markdown }}</article>

To learn about customizing the included type scales, read the documentation on customizing the CSS.

Adapting to dark mode

Each default color theme includes a hand-designed dark mode version that you can trigger by adding the prose-invert class:

<article class="prose dark:prose-invert">{{ markdown }}</article>

To learn about creating your own color themes, read the adding custom color themes documentation.

Element modifiers

Use element modifiers to customize the style of individual elements in your content directly in your HTML:

<article class="prose prose-img:rounded-xl prose-headings:underline prose-a:text-blue-600">
  {{ markdown }}
</article>

This makes it easy to do things like style links to match your brand, add a border radius to images, and tons more.

Here's a complete list of available element modifiers:

Modifier	Target
prose-headings:{utility}	h1, h2, h3, h4, th
prose-lead:{utility}	[class~="lead"]
prose-h1:{utility}	h1
prose-h2:{utility}	h2
prose-h3:{utility}	h3
prose-h4:{utility}	h4
prose-p:{utility}	p
prose-a:{utility}	a
prose-blockquote:{utility}	blockquote
prose-figure:{utility}	figure
prose-figcaption:{utility}	figcaption
prose-strong:{utility}	strong
prose-em:{utility}	em
prose-kbd:{utility}	kbd
prose-code:{utility}	code
prose-pre:{utility}	pre
prose-ol:{utility}	ol
prose-ul:{utility}	ul
prose-li:{utility}	li
prose-table:{utility}	table
prose-thead:{utility}	thead
prose-tr:{utility}	tr
prose-th:{utility}	th
prose-td:{utility}	td
prose-img:{utility}	img
prose-video:{utility}	video
prose-hr:{utility}	hr

When stacking these modifiers with other modifiers like hover, you most likely want the other modifier to come first:

<article class="prose prose-a:text-blue-600 hover:prose-a:text-blue-500">{{ markdown }}</article>

Read the Tailwind CSS documentation on ordering stacked modifiers to learn more.

Overriding max-width

Each size modifier comes with a baked in max-width designed to keep the content as readable as possible. This isn't always what you want though, and sometimes you'll want the content to just fill the width of its container.

In those cases, all you need to do is add max-w-none to your content to override the embedded max-width:

<div class="grid grid-cols-4">
  <div class="col-span-1">
    <!-- ... -->
  </div>
  <div class="col-span-3">
    <article class="prose max-w-none">{{ markdown }}</article>
  </div>
</div>

---

Advanced topics

Undoing typography styles

If you have a block of markup embedded in some content that shouldn't inherit the prose styles, use the not-prose class to sandbox it:

<article class="prose">
  <h1>My Heading</h1>
  <p>...</p>

  <div class="not-prose">
    <!-- Some example or demo that needs to be prose-free -->
  </div>

  <p>...</p>
  <!-- ... -->
</article>

Note that you can't nest new prose instances within a not-prose block at this time.

Adding custom color themes

You can create your own color theme by adding a new key in the typography section of your tailwind.config.js file and providing your colors under the css key:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      typography: ({ theme }) => ({
        pink: {
          css: {
            '--tw-prose-body': theme('colors.pink[800]'),
            '--tw-prose-headings': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-lead': theme('colors.pink[700]'),
            '--tw-prose-links': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-bold': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-counters': theme('colors.pink[600]'),
            '--tw-prose-bullets': theme('colors.pink[400]'),
            '--tw-prose-hr': theme('colors.pink[300]'),
            '--tw-prose-quotes': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-quote-borders': theme('colors.pink[300]'),
            '--tw-prose-captions': theme('colors.pink[700]'),
            '--tw-prose-code': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-pre-code': theme('colors.pink[100]'),
            '--tw-prose-pre-bg': theme('colors.pink[900]'),
            '--tw-prose-th-borders': theme('colors.pink[300]'),
            '--tw-prose-td-borders': theme('colors.pink[200]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-body': theme('colors.pink[200]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-headings': theme('colors.white'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-lead': theme('colors.pink[300]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-links': theme('colors.white'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-bold': theme('colors.white'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-counters': theme('colors.pink[400]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-bullets': theme('colors.pink[600]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-hr': theme('colors.pink[700]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-quotes': theme('colors.pink[100]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-quote-borders': theme('colors.pink[700]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-captions': theme('colors.pink[400]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-code': theme('colors.white'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-pre-code': theme('colors.pink[300]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-pre-bg': 'rgb(0 0 0 / 50%)',
            '--tw-prose-invert-th-borders': theme('colors.pink[600]'),
            '--tw-prose-invert-td-borders': theme('colors.pink[700]'),
          },
        },
      }),
    },
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography'),
    // ...
  ],
}

See our internal style definitions for some more examples.

Changing the default class name

If you need to use a class name other than prose for any reason, you can do so using the className option when registering the plugin:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    // ...
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography')({
      className: 'wysiwyg',
    }),
  ]
  ...
}

Now every instance of prose in the default class names will be replaced by your custom class name:

<article class="wysiwyg wysiwyg-slate lg:wysiwyg-xl">
  <h1>My Heading</h1>
  <p>...</p>

  <div class="not-wysiwyg">
    <!-- Some example or demo that needs to be prose-free -->
  </div>

  <p>...</p>
  <!-- ... -->
</article>

Customizing the CSS

If you want to customize the raw CSS generated by this plugin, add your overrides under the typography key in the theme section of your tailwind.config.js file:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      typography: {
        DEFAULT: {
          css: {
            color: '#333',
            a: {
              color: '#3182ce',
              '&:hover': {
                color: '#2c5282',
              },
            },
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography'),
    // ...
  ],
}

Like with all theme customizations in Tailwind, you can also define the typography key as a function if you need access to the theme helper:

/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      typography: (theme) => ({
        DEFAULT: {
          css: {
            color: theme('colors.gray.800'),

            // ...
          },
        },
      }),
    },
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography'),
    // ...
  ],
}

Customizations should be applied to a specific modifier like DEFAULT or xl, and must be added under the css property. Customizations are authored in the same CSS-in-JS syntax used to write Tailwind plugins.

See the default styles for this plugin for more in-depth examples of configuring each modifier.

---

Community

For help, discussion about best practices, or any other conversation that would benefit from being searchable:

Discuss the Tailwind CSS Typography plugin on GitHub

For casual chit-chat with others using the framework:

Join the Tailwind CSS Discord Server

Changelog

[0.5.15] - 2024-08-28

Fixed

• Support installing with alpha versions of Tailwind CSS v4 (#358)