Tailwind CSS select-text Class

The Tailwind CSS select-text utility applies user-select: text; to an element when added to its class attribute. It allows the user to select text within the element. Used to re-enable text selection inside a parent that has select-none applied.

This utility is part of Tailwind's Interactivity module, designed for controlling user interaction behaviors such as cursors, text selection, resizing, and scrolling. In Tailwind's utility-first workflow, you add select-text directly to your HTML elements rather than writing custom CSS. This approach accelerates development and keeps styles co-located with your markup, making it easy to see exactly how each element is styled at a glance.

Common responsive variants include sm:select-text, md:select-text, lg:select-text, and xl:select-text, allowing different behavior at each breakpoint. State variants like hover:select-text and focus:select-text enable interactive styling without any JavaScript. You can also combine multiple variants for fine-grained control over when the utility applies.

This class works well alongside `select-none`, `select-all`, `select-auto`, `cursor-text` to build complete, production-ready interfaces. Tailwind's tree-shaking ensures only utilities you actually use appear in your final CSS bundle, keeping file sizes minimal. Browser support for the underlying CSS is excellent across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.