Padding

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Basic usage

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Add padding to a single side

Control the padding on one side of an element using the p{t|r|b|l}-{size} utilities.

For example, pt-6 would add 1.5rem of padding to the top of an element, pr-4 would add 1rem of padding to the right of an element, pb-8 would add 2rem of padding to the bottom of an element, and pl-2 would add 0.5rem of padding to the left of an element.

<div class="pt-6 ...">pt-6</div>
<div class="pr-4 ...">pr-4</div>
<div class="pb-8 ...">pb-8</div>
<div class="pl-2 ...">pl-2</div>

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Add horizontal padding

Control the horizontal padding of an element using the px-{size} utilities.

<div class="px-8 ...">px-8</div>

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Add vertical padding

Control the vertical padding of an element using the py-{size} utilities.

<div class="py-8 ...">py-8</div>

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Add padding to all sides

Control the padding on all sides of an element using the p-{size} utilities.

<div class="p-8 ...">p-8</div>

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Applying conditionally

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Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:py-8 to only apply the py-8 utility on hover.

<div class="py-4 hover:py-8">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.

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Breakpoints and media queries

You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md:py-8 to apply the py-8 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<div class="py-4 md:py-8">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.

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Using custom values

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Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind’s padding scale uses the default spacing scale. You can customize your spacing scale by editing theme.spacing or theme.extend.spacing in your tailwind.config.js file.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      spacing: {
        '5px': '5px',
      }
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you can customize just the padding scale by editing theme.padding or theme.extend.padding in your tailwind.config.js file.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      padding: {
        '5px': '5px',
      }
    }
  }
}

Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.

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Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off padding value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.

<div class="p-[5px]">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.