HTML5 doctype

Bootstrap requires the use of the HTML5 doctype. Without it, you’ll see some funky incomplete styling, but including it shouldn’t cause any considerable hiccups.

Responsive meta tag

You can see an example of this in action in the starter template.

Box-sizing

On the rare occasion you need to override it, use something like the following:

Reboot

For improved cross-browser rendering, we use Reboot to correct inconsistencies across browsers and devices while providing slightly more opinionated resets to common HTML elements.

Community

Stay up to date on the development of Bootstrap and reach out to the community with these helpful resources.

You can also follow @getbootstrap on Twitter for the latest gossip and awesome music videos.

Introduction

Get started with Bootstrap, the world’s most popular framework for building responsive, mobile-first sites, with jsDelivr and a template starter page.

Quick start

Looking to quickly add Bootstrap to your project? Use jsDelivr, provided for free by the folks at jsDelivr. Using a package manager or need to download the source files? Head to the downloads page.

Many of our components require the use of JavaScript to function. Specifically, they require jQuery, Popper.js, and our own JavaScript plugins. Place the following

Curious which components explicitly require jQuery, our JS, and Popper.js? Click the show components link below. If you’re at all unsure about the general page structure, keep reading for an example page template.

Our bootstrap.bundle.js and bootstrap.bundle.min.js include Popper, but not jQuery. For more information about what’s included in Bootstrap, please see our contents section.

Starter template

Be sure to have your pages set up with the latest design and development standards. That means using an HTML5 doctype and including a viewport meta tag for proper responsive behaviors. Put it all together and your pages should look like this:

That’s all you need for overall page requirements. Visit the Layout docs or our official examples to start laying out your site’s content and components.

Important globals

Bootstrap employs a handful of important global styles and settings that you’ll need to be aware of when using it, all of which are almost exclusively geared towards the normalization of cross browser styles. Let’s dive in.

HTML5 doctype

Bootstrap requires the use of the HTML5 doctype. Without it, you’ll see some funky incomplete styling, but including it shouldn’t cause any considerable hiccups.

Responsive meta tag

You can see an example of this in action in the starter template.

Box-sizing

On the rare occasion you need to override it, use something like the following:

Reboot

For improved cross-browser rendering, we use Reboot to correct inconsistencies across browsers and devices while providing slightly more opinionated resets to common HTML elements.

Community

Stay up to date on the development of Bootstrap and reach out to the community with these helpful resources.

You can also follow @getbootstrap on Twitter for the latest gossip and awesome music videos.

Introduction

Get started with Bootstrap, the world’s most popular framework for building responsive, mobile-first sites, with jsDelivr and a template starter page.

Quick start

Looking to quickly add Bootstrap to your project? Use jsDelivr, provided for free by the folks at jsDelivr. Using a package manager or need to download the source files? Head to the downloads page.

Many of our components require the use of JavaScript to function. Specifically, they require jQuery, Popper.js, and our own JavaScript plugins. Place the following

Curious which components explicitly require jQuery, our JS, and Popper.js? Click the show components link below. If you’re at all unsure about the general page structure, keep reading for an example page template.

Our bootstrap.bundle.js and bootstrap.bundle.min.js include Popper, but not jQuery. For more information about what’s included in Bootstrap, please see our contents section.

Starter template

Be sure to have your pages set up with the latest design and development standards. That means using an HTML5 doctype and including a viewport meta tag for proper responsive behaviors. Put it all together and your pages should look like this:

That’s all you need for overall page requirements. Visit the Layout docs or our official examples to start laying out your site’s content and components.

Important globals

Bootstrap employs a handful of important global styles and settings that you’ll need to be aware of when using it, all of which are almost exclusively geared towards the normalization of cross browser styles. Let’s dive in.

HTML5 doctype

Bootstrap requires the use of the HTML5 doctype. Without it, you’ll see some funky incomplete styling, but including it shouldn’t cause any considerable hiccups.

Responsive meta tag

You can see an example of this in action in the starter template.

Box-sizing

On the rare occasion you need to override it, use something like the following:

Reboot

For improved cross-browser rendering, we use Reboot to correct inconsistencies across browsers and devices while providing slightly more opinionated resets to common HTML elements.

Community

Stay up to date on the development of Bootstrap and reach out to the community with these helpful resources.

You can also follow @getbootstrap on Twitter for the latest gossip and awesome music videos.

Introduction

Get started with Bootstrap, the world’s most popular framework for building responsive, mobile-first sites, with jsDelivr and a template starter page.

Quick start

Looking to quickly add Bootstrap to your project? Use jsDelivr, provided for free by the folks at jsDelivr. Using a package manager or need to download the source files? Head to the downloads page.

Many of our components require the use of JavaScript to function. Specifically, they require jQuery, Popper.js, and our own JavaScript plugins. Place the following

Curious which components explicitly require jQuery, our JS, and Popper.js? Click the show components link below. If you’re at all unsure about the general page structure, keep reading for an example page template.

Our bootstrap.bundle.js and bootstrap.bundle.min.js include Popper, but not jQuery. For more information about what’s included in Bootstrap, please see our contents section.

Starter template

Be sure to have your pages set up with the latest design and development standards. That means using an HTML5 doctype and including a viewport meta tag for proper responsive behaviors. Put it all together and your pages should look like this:

That’s all you need for overall page requirements. Visit the Layout docs or our official examples to start laying out your site’s content and components.

Important globals

Bootstrap employs a handful of important global styles and settings that you’ll need to be aware of when using it, all of which are almost exclusively geared towards the normalization of cross browser styles. Let’s dive in.

HTML5 doctype

Bootstrap requires the use of the HTML5 doctype. Without it, you’ll see some funky incomplete styling, but including it shouldn’t cause any considerable hiccups.

Responsive meta tag

You can see an example of this in action in the starter template.

Box-sizing

On the rare occasion you need to override it, use something like the following:

Reboot

For improved cross-browser rendering, we use Reboot to correct inconsistencies across browsers and devices while providing slightly more opinionated resets to common HTML elements.

Community

Stay up to date on the development of Bootstrap and reach out to the community with these helpful resources.

You can also follow @getbootstrap on Twitter for the latest gossip and awesome music videos.

Bootstrap Tutorial

How to Setup and Use Bootstrap (Step-by-Step)

Last updated: Dec 8, 2020

Editor in Chief

Bootstrap, which is the topic of this tutorial, is a front-end framework that helps you build mobile responsive websites more quickly and easily. First developed by Twitter, it now powers anything from web applications to WordPress themes. Famous users include Spotify, LinkedIn, among others. The framework is also completely free, versatile, and intuitive.

With Bootstrap, you can conjure complex web pages from standard HTML and customize them to your needs. It also comes with additional functionality such as carousels, buttons, popups, and more.

Last, but not least, Bootstrap gives you a lot of shortcuts for creating web pages that will save you time and energy. All you need is a basic understanding of HTML and CSS to create web pages that are responsive, mobile-first, and compatible with all modern browsers.

P.S. While Bootstrap is awesome, it’s not a perfect option for complete beginners. If you have absolutely no experience using markup, alternatively, you can use a website builders or WordPress to create a website.

How to Create a Website Using Bootstrap (Table of Contents):

Total time to create a website using Bootstrap: 3-4 hours.
Skill level: Beginner to Intermediate

Boostrap Tutorial Step 1: Setup and Overview

In order to use Bootstrap, you first need to integrate it into your development environment, aka web page. For that, you have two different possibilities: load it remotely or download and use Bootstrap locally. However, for both, you first need something to load it into.

1. Create an HTML Page

As a first step in this tutorial, we will create a simple HTML template as a base where we will use Bootstrap. For that, the first thing you want to do is create a folder on your computer or server for the project files. In this case, we will simply call it bootstrap. Here, create a new text file and call it index.html. Open it with a text editor of your choice (e.g. Notepad++) and then paste the code below into it.

Don’t forget to save your file before moving on.

2a. Load Bootstrap via CDN

As already explained, Bootstrap consists mainly of style sheets and scripts. As such, they can be loaded in the header and footer of your web page like other assets such as custom fonts. The framework offers a CDN (content delivery network) access path for that. You can find it on the Bootstrap download page when you scroll down.

To get Bootstrap into your page, simply paste the code below into the section of your template.

Be sure to take the actual link from the download page in order to make sure you are using the latest version of Bootstrap.

When you now save the file, any browser that opens it will automatically load the Bootstrap assets.

Using the remote method is a good idea as many users will already have the the file in the cache of their browser from loading other Bootstrap-based websites. If that is the case, they won’t have to reload it when coming to your site, leading to faster page loading time. As a consequence, this is the recommended method for live sites.

However, for experimenting and development, or if you want to be independent of an Internet connection, you can also get your own copy of the files. This is what we’re doing for this Bootstrap tutorial because it also results in less code we need to post.

2b. Host Bootstrap Locally

An alternative way to set up Bootstrap is to download it to your hard drive and use the files locally. You find download options in the same place as the links to the remote version. Be sure to get the compiled CSS and JS files. You don’t need the source files.

Once you have finished downloading it, unzip the file and copy its contents into the same directory as index.html. After that, you can load the Bootstrap CSS into your project like this:

You will notice that this includes the file path at which to find the Bootstrap file. In your case, make sure your path corresponds to your actual setup. For example, the names of the directories might differ if you downloaded a different version of Bootstrap.

3. Include jQuery

In order to get the full functionality of Bootstrap, you also need to load the jQuery library. Here, too, you have the possibility to load it remotely or host it locally.

(Quick note: Bootstrap 5, which is currently in Beta status, will stop using jQuery and use plain JavaScript instead. We will address the upcoming change below. However, for the current version, Bootstrap 4, you still need jQuery, so this tutorial will include it.)

You find the link to the latest version of the jQuery library here (click on any of the links to get the remote URL). You can use it to load the library into your page by putting the line of code below right before where it says