How to use font awesome in React and Typescript

This article describes how to use font-awesome with a React Js project with Typescript. It's a bit different from React and Javascript approaches.

To use font awesome

1. Install font-awesome npm packages
2. Init the font-awesome library in index.js or index.tsx
3. Use the icons with the FontAwesome component

To install font-awesome packages
using NPM:

npm i --save @fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core
npm install --save @fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons
npm install --save @fortawesome/react-fontawesome
npm install --save @fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons

yarn add @fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core
yarn add @fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons
yarn add @fortawesome/react-fontawesome
yarn add @fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons

Initializing the font-awesome library

The initialization is only necessary if you plan to use the font-awesome library globally in your application. That way you can avoid importing icon types in every component you use font-awesome. If you prefer importing them at the Component level you can skip to the next section. I initialize font-awesome in the index.tsx file since it is at a higher level than all the other components in the application.

import { faB, faCheckSquare, faCoffee, faDatabase, faHouseLaptop, faS, faWindowMaximize } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons';
library.add(faB, faS, faHouseLaptop, faCheckSquare, faCoffee, faDatabase, faWindowMaximize)

Here, you will have to import all the icons you intend to use throughout the application.

How to use the icons in the React Components?

If you have initialized the font-awesome library, you can use the FontAwesomeIcon component like below.

Note that I have imported fas and house-laptop as faS and faHouseLaptop in index.tsx file. If you decide to import the icons at the page level, the FontAwesomeIcon component will like below.

You need to have the faHouseLaptop import on the page.

How to add a specific font-awesome icon in React Typescript?

To add an icon to a page, go to Font Awesome site and search for the icon you want. Let's say you want <FontAwesomeIcon icon="fa-solid fa-align-right" /> on your page. But since you use Typescript, you will get a type error.

This is how to make it work with Typescript.

The icon is fa-solid fa-align-right.
In font-awesome Typescript, fa-solid is represented by fas and fa-align-right by align-right. The icon property type is IconProp instead of a string. Therefore, the correct usage is:
<FontAwesomeIcon icon={["fas", "align-right"]} />

For the above align-right icon, you need to import and initialize align-right as below.

import { faS, faAlignRight } from '@fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons';
library.add(faS, faAlignRight)

The IconProp type consists of IconPrefix and IconName. The valid Icon prefixes are

"fas" -> solid
"far" -> regular
"fal" -> light
"fat" -> thin
"fad" -> duotone
"fab" -> brand

Another example:
<FontAwesomeIcon icon="fa-brands fa-github-square" />
translates to:
<FontAwesomeIcon icon={["fab", "github-square"]} />
and needs imports:

import { fab, faGithubSquare } from '@fortawesome/free-brands-svg-icons'
library.add(fab, faGithubSquare)

How to add font-awesome icons in React Typescript without initializing?

To add the font-awesome icons at the page level, simply use the icon name in-place of the IconProp type. <FontAwesomeIcon icon={faGitSquare} />