Pills

Bootstrap 5 Pills component

Pills are quasi-navigation components which can highly improve website clarity and increase user experience.

Note: Read the API tab to find all available options and advanced customization

Basic example

Basic pills are divided into 2 main sections - Pills navs (containing nav-items) and Pills content (containing tab-panes).

Use id and href attribute to connect pills navs with pills content.

In the example below Tab 1 uses href="#ex1-pills-1" in the first nav-link element to connect it with the first tab-pane which has an ID ex1-pills-1.

Tab 1 content
Tab 2 content
Tab 3 content
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          <!-- Pills navs -->
          <ul class="nav nav-pills mb-3" id="ex1" role="tablist">
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link active"
                id="ex1-tab-1"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                href="#ex1-pills-1"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="ex1-pills-1"
                aria-selected="true"
                >Tab 1</a
              >
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link"
                id="ex1-tab-2"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                href="#ex1-pills-2"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="ex1-pills-2"
                aria-selected="false"
                >Tab 2</a
              >
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link"
                id="ex1-tab-3"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                href="#ex1-pills-3"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="ex1-pills-3"
                aria-selected="false"
                >Tab 3</a
              >
            </li>
          </ul>
          <!-- Pills navs -->

          <!-- Pills content -->
          <div class="tab-content" id="ex1-content">
            <div
              class="tab-pane fade show active"
              id="ex1-pills-1"
              role="tabpanel"
              aria-labelledby="ex1-tab-1"
            >
              Tab 1 content
            </div>
            <div class="tab-pane fade" id="ex1-pills-2" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ex1-tab-2">
              Tab 2 content
            </div>
            <div class="tab-pane fade" id="ex1-pills-3" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ex1-tab-3">
              Tab 3 content
            </div>
          </div>
          <!-- Pills content -->

Fill and justify

Force your .nav's contents to extend the full available width one of two modifier classes.

Fill

To proportionately fill all available space with your .nav-items, use .nav-fill. Notice that all horizontal space is occupied, but not every nav item has the same width.

Tab 1 content
Tab 2 content
Tab 3 content
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            <!-- Pills navs -->
            <ul class="nav nav-pills nav-fill mb-3" id="ex1" role="tablist">
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link active"
                  id="ex2-tab-1"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex2-pills-1"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex2-pills-1"
                  aria-selected="true"
                  >Link</a
                >
              </li>
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="ex2-tab-2"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex2-pills-2"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex2-pills-2"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Very very very very long link</a
                >
              </li>
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="ex2-tab-3"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex2-pills-3"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex2-pills-3"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Another link</a
                >
              </li>
            </ul>
            <!-- Pills navs -->

            <!-- Pills content -->
            <div class="tab-content" id="ex2-content">
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade show active"
                id="ex2-pills-1"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex2-tab-1"
              >
                Tab 1 content
              </div>
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade"
                id="ex2-pills-2"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex2-tab-2"
              >
                Tab 2 content
              </div>
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade"
                id="ex2-pills-3"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex2-tab-3"
              >
                Tab 3 content
              </div>
            </div>
            <!-- Pills content -->

Justify

For equal-width elements, use .nav-justified. All horizontal space will be occupied by nav links, but unlike the .nav-fill above, every nav item will be the same width.

Tab 1 content
Tab 2 content
Tab 3 content
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            <!-- Pills navs -->
            <ul class="nav nav-pills nav-justified mb-3" id="ex1" role="tablist">
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link active"
                  id="ex3-tab-1"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex3-pills-1"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex3-pills-1"
                  aria-selected="true"
                  >Link</a
                >
              </li>
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="ex3-tab-2"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex3-pills-2"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex3-pills-2"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Very very very very long link</a
                >
              </li>
              <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="ex3-tab-3"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#ex3-pills-3"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="ex3-pills-3"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Another link</a
                >
              </li>
            </ul>
            <!-- Pills navs -->

            <!-- Pills content -->
            <div class="tab-content" id="ex2-content">
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade show active"
                id="ex3-pills-1"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex3-tab-1"
              >
                Tab 1 content
              </div>
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade"
                id="ex3-pills-2"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex3-tab-2"
              >
                Tab 2 content
              </div>
              <div
                class="tab-pane fade"
                id="ex3-pills-3"
                role="tabpanel"
                aria-labelledby="ex3-tab-3"
              >
                Tab 3 content
              </div>
            </div>
            <!-- Pills content -->

Vertical

Stack your navigation by changing the flex item direction with the .flex-column utility. Need to stack them on some viewports but not others? Use the responsive versions (e.g., .flex-sm-column).

For proper layout, you may also need to use grid to adjust navs and content.

Home Profile Messages
Home content
Profile content
Messages content
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          <div class="row">
            <div class="col-3">
              <!-- Tab navs -->
              <div
                class="nav flex-column nav-pills text-center"
                id="v-pills-tab"
                role="tablist"
                aria-orientation="vertical"
              >
                <a
                  class="nav-link active"
                  id="v-pills-home-tab"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#v-pills-home"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="v-pills-home"
                  aria-selected="true"
                  >Home</a
                >
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="v-pills-profile-tab"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#v-pills-profile"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="v-pills-profile"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Profile</a
                >
                <a
                  class="nav-link"
                  id="v-pills-messages-tab"
                  data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                  href="#v-pills-messages"
                  role="tab"
                  aria-controls="v-pills-messages"
                  aria-selected="false"
                  >Messages</a
                >
              </div>
              <!-- Tab navs -->
            </div>

            <div class="col-9">
              <!-- Tab content -->
              <div class="tab-content" id="v-pills-tabContent">
                <div
                  class="tab-pane fade show active"
                  id="v-pills-home"
                  role="tabpanel"
                  aria-labelledby="v-pills-home-tab"
                >
                  Home content
                </div>
                <div
                  class="tab-pane fade"
                  id="v-pills-profile"
                  role="tabpanel"
                  aria-labelledby="v-pills-profile-tab"
                >
                  Profile content
                </div>
                <div
                  class="tab-pane fade"
                  id="v-pills-messages"
                  role="tabpanel"
                  aria-labelledby="v-pills-messages-tab"
                >
                  Messages content
                </div>
              </div>
              <!-- Tab content -->
            </div>
          </div>

Pills with icons

Use one of 1541 icons and add it to the pills. See the icon docs to explore all the available icons.

Tab 1 content
Tab 2 content
Tab 3 content
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        <!-- Tabs navs -->
        <ul class="nav nav-pills mb-3" id="ex-with-icons" role="tablist">
          <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
            <a class="nav-link active" id="ex-with-icons-tab-1" data-mdb-toggle="tab" href="#ex-with-icons-tabs-1" role="tab"
              aria-controls="ex-with-icons-tabs-1" aria-selected="true"><i class="fas fa-chart-pie fa-fw me-2"></i>Sales</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
            <a class="nav-link" id="ex-with-icons-tab-2" data-mdb-toggle="tab" href="#ex-with-icons-tabs-2" role="tab"
              aria-controls="ex-with-icons-tabs-2" aria-selected="false"><i class="fas fa-chart-line fa-fw me-2"></i>Subscriptions</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
            <a class="nav-link" id="ex-with-icons-tab-3" data-mdb-toggle="tab" href="#ex-with-icons-tabs-3" role="tab"
              aria-controls="ex-with-icons-tabs-3" aria-selected="false"><i class="fas fa-cogs fa-fw me-2"></i>Settings</a>
          </li>
        </ul>
        <!-- Tabs navs -->
    
        <!-- Tabs content -->
        <div class="tab-content" id="ex-with-icons-content">
          <div class="tab-pane fade show active" id="ex-with-icons-tabs-1" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ex-with-icons-tab-1">
            Tab 1 content
          </div>
          <div class="tab-pane fade" id="ex-with-icons-tabs-2" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ex-with-icons-tab-2">
            Tab 2 content
          </div>
          <div class="tab-pane fade" id="ex-with-icons-tabs-3" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ex-with-icons-tab-3">
            Tab 3 content
          </div>
        </div>
        <!-- Tabs content -->

Pills with buttons

Dynamic tabbed interfaces, as described in the WAI ARIA Authoring Practices, require role="tablist", role="tab", role="tabpanel", and additional aria- attributes in order to convey their structure, functionality and current state to users of assistive technologies (such as screen readers). As a best practice, we recommend using <button> elements for the tabs, as these are controls that trigger a dynamic change, rather than links that navigate to a new page or location.

Tab 1 content
Tab 2 content
Tab 3 content
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          <ul class="nav nav-pills mb-3" id="pills-tab2" role="tablist">
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <button
                class="nav-link active"
                id="pills-home-tab2"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                data-mdb-target="#pills-home2"
                type="button"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="pills-home"
                aria-selected="true"
              >
                Home
              </button>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <button
                class="nav-link"
                id="pills-profile-tab2"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                data-mdb-target="#pills-profile2"
                type="button"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="pills-profile"
                aria-selected="false"
              >
                Profile
              </button>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <button
                class="nav-link"
                id="pills-contact-tab2"
                data-mdb-toggle="pill"
                data-mdb-target="#pills-contact2"
                type="button"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="pills-contact"
                aria-selected="false"
              >
                Contact
              </button>
            </li>
          </ul>
          <div class="tab-content" id="pills-tabContent2">
            <div
              class="tab-pane fade show active"
              id="pills-home2"
              role="tabpanel"
              aria-labelledby="pills-home-tab2"
            >
              Tab 1 content
            </div>
            <div
              class="tab-pane fade"
              id="pills-profile2"
              role="tabpanel"
              aria-labelledby="pills-profile-tab2"
            >
              Tab 2 content
            </div>
            <div
              class="tab-pane fade"
              id="pills-contact2"
              role="tabpanel"
              aria-labelledby="pills-contact-tab2"
            >
              Tab 3 content
            </div>
          </div>

Pills - API

Usage

Regarding accessibility

If you’re using navs to provide a navigation bar, be sure to add a role="navigation" to the most logical parent container of the <ul>, or wrap a <nav> element around the whole navigation. Do not add the role to the <ul> itself, as this would prevent it from being announced as an actual list by assistive technologies.

Note that navigation bars, even if visually styled as pills with the .nav-pills class, should not be given role="tablist", role="tab" or role="tabpanel" attributes. These are only appropriate for dynamic tabbed interfaces, as described in the WAI ARIA Authoring Practices. The aria-current attribute is not necessary on dynamic tabbed interfaces since our JavaScript handles the selected state by adding aria-selected="true" on the active tab.

Via data attributes

You can activate a tab or pill navigation without writing any JavaScript by simply specifying data-mdb-toggle="tab" or data-mdb-toggle="pill" on an element. Use these data attributes on .nav-pills or .nav-pills.

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          <!-- Nav pills -->
          <ul class="nav nav-pills" id="myTab" role="tablist">
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link active"
                id="home-tab"
                data-mdb-toggle="tab"
                href="#home"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="home"
                aria-selected="true"
                >Home</a
              >
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link"
                id="profile-tab"
                data-mdb-toggle="tab"
                href="#profile"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="profile"
                aria-selected="false"
                >Profile</a
              >
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link"
                id="messages-tab"
                data-mdb-toggle="tab"
                href="#messages"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="messages"
                aria-selected="false"
                >Messages</a
              >
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item" role="presentation">
              <a
                class="nav-link"
                id="settings-tab"
                data-mdb-toggle="tab"
                href="#settings"
                role="tab"
                aria-controls="settings"
                aria-selected="false"
                >Settings</a
              >
            </li>
          </ul>

          <!-- Tab panes -->
          <div class="tab-content">
            <div class="tab-pane active" id="home" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="home-tab">
              ...
            </div>
            <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="profile-tab">
              ...
            </div>
            <div class="tab-pane" id="messages" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="messages-tab">
              ...
            </div>
            <div class="tab-pane" id="settings" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="settings-tab">
              ...
            </div>
          </div>

Via JavaScript

Enable tabbable pills via JavaScript (each tab needs to be activated individually):

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          const triggerTabList = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('#myTab a'))
          triggerTabList.forEach((triggerEl) => {
            const tabTrigger = new mdb.Tab(triggerEl)

            triggerEl.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
              e.preventDefault()
              tabTrigger.show()
            })
          })

You can activate individual pills in several ways:

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          const triggerEl = document.querySelector('#myTab a[href="#profile"]')
          mdb.Tab.getInstance(triggerEl).show() // Select tab by name

          const triggerFirstTabEl = document.querySelector('#myTab li:first-child a')
          mdb.Tab.getInstance(triggerFirstTabEl).show() // Select first tab

Via jQuery

Note: By default, MDB does not include jQuery and you have to add it to the project on your own.

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          $('.example-class').tab();

Methods

Asynchronous methods and transitions:
All API methods are asynchronous and start a transition. They return to the caller as soon as the transition is started but before it ends. In addition, a method call on a transitioning component will be ignored.

Name Description Example
show Selects the given tab and shows its associated pane. Any other tab that was previously selected becomes unselected and its associated pane is hidden. Returns to the caller before the tab pane has actually been shown (i.e. before the shown.mdb.tab event occurs). instance.show()
dispose Destroys an element’s tab. instance.dispose()
getInstance Static method which allows you to get the tab instance associated to a DOM element. Tab.getInstance(someTabTriggerEl)
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          const someTabTriggerEl = document.querySelector('#someTabTrigger')
          const tab = new mdb.Tab(someTabTriggerEl) tab.show()

Events

When showing a new tab, the events fire in the following order:

  1. hide.mdb.tab (on the current active tab)
  2. show.mdb.tab (on the to-be-shown tab)
  3. hidden.mdb.tab (on the previous active tab, the same one as for the hide.mdb.tab event)
  4. shown.mdb.tab (on the newly-active just-shown tab, the same one as for the show.mdb.tab event)

If no tab was already active, then the hide.mdb.tab and hidden.mdb.tab events will not be fired.

Event type Description
show.mdb.tab This event fires on tab show, but before the new tab has been shown. Use event.target and event.relatedTarget to target the active tab and the previous active tab (if available) respectively.
shown.mdb.tab This event fires on tab show after a tab has been shown. Use event.target and event.relatedTarget to target the active tab and the previous active tab (if available) respectively.
hide.mdb.tab This event fires when a new tab is to be shown (and thus the previous active tab is to be hidden). Use event.target and event.relatedTarget to target the current active tab and the new soon-to-be-active tab, respectively.
hidden.mdb.tab This event fires after a new tab is shown (and thus the previous active tab is hidden). Use event.target and event.relatedTarget to target the previous active tab and the new active tab, respectively.
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          const tabEl = document.querySelector('a[data-mdb-toggle="tab"]')
          tabEl.addEventListener('shown.mdb.tab', (e) => {
            e.target // newly activated tab
            e.relatedTarget // previous active tab
          })

Import

MDB UI KIT also works with module bundlers. Use the following code to import this component:

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          import { Tab } from 'mdb-ui-kit';

CSS variables

As part of MDB’s evolving CSS variables approach, pills now use local CSS variables for enhanced real-time customization. Values for the CSS variables are set via Sass, so Sass customization is still supported, too.

Pills CSS variables are in different classes which belong to this component. To make it easier to use them, you can find below all of the used CSS variables.

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        // .nav
        --#{$prefix}nav-link-disabled-color: #{$nav-link-disabled-color};

        // .nav-pills
        // .nav-link
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-border-radius: #{$nav-pills-link-border-radius};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-font-size: #{$nav-pills-link-font-size};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-padding-top: #{$nav-pills-link-padding-top};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-padding-bottom: #{$nav-pills-link-padding-bottom};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-padding-x: #{$nav-pills-link-padding-x};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-line-height: #{$nav-pills-link-line-height};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-hover-bg: #{$nav-pills-link-hover-bg};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-font-weight: #{$nav-pills-link-font-weight};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-color: #{$nav-pills-link-color};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-margin: #{$nav-pills-margin};
        
        // .nav-link.active,
        // .show > .nav-link
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-active-bg: #{$nav-pills-link-active-bg};
        --#{$prefix}nav-pills-link-active-color: #{$nav-pills-link-active-color};

SCSS variables

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        $nav-link-transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out, background-color 0.15s ease-in-out, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out;
        $nav-link-disabled-color: $gray-600;

        $nav-pills-border-radius: $border-radius;

        $nav-pills-margin: 0.5rem;
        $nav-pills-link-border-radius: 0.25rem;
        $nav-pills-link-font-size: $nav-tabs-link-font-size;
        $nav-pills-link-padding-top: $nav-tabs-link-padding-top;
        $nav-pills-link-padding-bottom: $nav-tabs-link-padding-bottom;
        $nav-pills-link-padding-x: $nav-tabs-link-padding-x;
        $nav-pills-link-line-height: 1;
        $nav-pills-link-background-color: $nav-tabs-link-hover-background-color;
        $nav-pills-link-font-weight: $nav-tabs-link-font-weight;
        $nav-pills-link-color: $nav-tabs-link-color;
        $nav-pills-link-hover-bg: $nav-tabs-link-hover-bgc;
        $nav-pills-link-active-bg: #e3ebf7;
        $nav-pills-link-active-color: #285192;