How to namespace Twitter Bootstrap so styles don't conflict

Solution 1:

This turned out to be easier than I thought. Both Less and Sass support namespacing (using the same syntax even). When you include bootstrap, you can do so within a selector to namespace it:

.bootstrap-styles {
  @import 'bootstrap';
}

Update: For newer versions of LESS, here's how to do it:

.bootstrap-styles {
  @import (less) url("bootstrap.css");
}

A similar question was answered here.

Solution 2:

@Andrew great answer. You'll also want to note that bootstrap modifies the body {}, mainly to add font. So when you namespace it via LESS/SASS your output css file looks like this: (in bootstrap 3)

.bootstrap-styles body {
    font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 1.428571429;
    color: #333333;
    background-color: white;
}

but obviously there will not be a body tag inside your div, so your bootstrap content will not have the bootstrap font (since all bootstrap inherits font from parent)

To fix, the answer should be:

.bootstrap-styles {
    font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 1.428571429;
    color: #333333;
    background-color: white;

    @import 'bootstrap';
}