How to use Tailwind with any CSS framework

Tailwind is great, but creating everything from scratch is annoying. A nice base of components which can be extended with tailwind would be great. There are a few tailwind frameworks like Flowbite, Daisy Ui, but I like Bulma, PicoCSS and Bootstrap.

We will use in this example Remix, same steps will need to be made for any other framework using vite.

Install tailwind:

npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer

Prepare tailwind files:

npx tailwindcss init --ts -p

In tailwind.config.ts add paths (content) where react components will be and add the prefix config so tailwind classes won’t conflict with bulma (or bootstrap, picss other css framework).

// tailwind.config.ts import type { Config } from 'tailwindcss' export default { content: ['./app/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}'], prefix: "t-", theme: { extend: {}, }, plugins: [],
} satisfies Config 

Install BulmaCSS with npm:

npm install bulma

Now, with Bulma and Tailwind installed and configured let’s plug it into our app.

Next to app/root.tsx (or in other frameworks the main component/entrypoint of your app) create a styles.css file and add the following:

/* app/styles.css */ @import "bulma/css/bulma.min.css"; @tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities; 

Here, we import bulma css from node packages and the tailwind stuff.

In root.tsx file let’s import the css file created:

// app/root.tsx import type { LinksFunction } from "@remix-run/node";
import stylesheet from "~/styles.css?url"; export const links: LinksFunction = () => [ { rel: "stylesheet", href: stylesheet },
] 

And, now we can use Bulma components and when that’s not enough add some Tailwind magic.

// app/routes/_index.tsx export default function SomeReactComponent() { return ( <div className="container"> <h1 className="title is-1">Bulma title</h1>
 <p className="t-text-3xl">Tailwind big text</p>
 </div>
 )
}