How To Use Font Awesome 5 with React?

Font Awesome is a versatile icon library widely used to add scalable vector icons to web projects. Integrating Font Awesome 5 with React allows developers to incorporate these icons into their React applications easily. This article will guide you through the steps to effectively utilize Font Awesome 5 in your React projects.

Installing Font Awesome 5

Install the package via npm or yarn to start using Font Awesome in a React project. For instance, we are using npm here:

npm install @fortawesome/fontawesome-free

This command fetches the Font Awesome 5 package.

Importing Icons

After installation, you import the necessary components and icons into your React components:

import { FontAwesomeIcon } from '@fortawesome/react-fontawesome';
import { faCoffee } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons';

This code snippet demonstrates how to import the FontAwesomeIcon component and a specific icon (faCoffee in this case) from the free solid icon set.

Rendering Icons

You can use the FontAwesomeIcon component to display icons within your React components:

functionApp() {
  return (
   <div>
     <FontAwesomeIcon icon={faCoffee} />
   </div>
  );
}

This example shows how to render the faCoffee icon using the FontAwesomeIcon component.

Customization

Font Awesome allows for customization of icons by specifying options like size, color, and rotation:

<FontAwesomeIcon icon={faCoffee} size="2x" color="red" rotation={90} />

This snippet illustrates how to set the size to twice the default size, color the icon red, and rotate it by 90 degrees.

Managing Icons

To manage and organize imported icons, it’s suggested to create a separate file (iconLibrary.js in this case):

// iconLibrary.js
import { library } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core';
import{ faCoffee, faAddressBook, faEnvelope } from'@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons';
import { faGithub, faTwitter, faLinkedin } from'@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons';
library.add(faCoffee, faAddressBook, faEnvelope, faGithub, faTwitter, faLinkedin);

This file collects the icons into a library using library.add() from both the free solid and free brand icon sets.

Importing the Library

Finally, you import the created library file into your components:

import { FontAwesomeIcon } from '@fortawesome/react-fontawesome';
import'./iconLibrary'; // Import the file containing your icons

Importing this file makes the icons available throughout your React application.

Conclusion

The article emphasizes how integrating Font Awesome 5 with React enhances visual appeal and functionality. By following these steps—installing the package, importing icons, configuring options, and organizing icons in a separate file—you can effectively leverage Font Awesome icons to elevate the user experience of your React projects.

Happy Coding !!!