(This is simplified documentation from https://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.io. You are more than welcome to visit the aforementioned page for more details)
The Jupyter Notebook is an interactive computing environment that enables users to author notebook documents that include:
The Jupyter Notebook combines three components:
text, equations, images, and rich media representations of objects. Each notebook document has its own kernel.
When you run the notebook web application on your computer, notebook documents are just files on your local filesystem with a .ipynb
extension. This allows you to use familiar workflows for organizing your notebooks into folders and sharing them with others.
Notebooks consist of a linear sequence of cells. There are three basic cell types:
Jupyter Notebooks have a modal user interface, which means that the keyboard does different things depending on which mode the Notebook is in. There are two modes: edit mode and command mode.
Edit mode is indicated by a green cell borderand a prompt showing in the editor area. When a cell is in edit mode, you can type into the cell, like a normal text editor.
Command mode is indicated by a grey cell border with a blue left margin. When you are in command mode, you are able to edit the notebook as a whole, but not type into individual cells.
Most importantly, in command mode, the keyboard is mapped to a set of shortcuts that let you perform notebook and cell actions efficiently.
For example, if you are in command mode and you press c
, you will copy the current cell - no modifier is needed.
All navigation and actions in the Notebook are available using the mouse through the menubar and toolbar, which are both above the main Notebook area.
A couple of basic ideas:
cells can be selected by clicking on them. The currently selected cell gets a grey or green border depending on whether the notebook is in edit or command mode. If you click inside a cell's editor area, you will enter edit mode. If you click on the prompt or output area of a cell you will enter command mode.
cell actions usually apply to the currently selected cell. Thus if you want to run the code in a cell, you would select it and click the button in the toolbar or the "Cell:Run" menu item. Similarly, to copy a cell you would select it and click the button in the toolbar or the "Edit:Copy" menu item. With this simple pattern, you should be able to do most everything you need with the mouse.
The modal user interface of the Jupyter Notebook has been optimized for efficient keyboard usage. This is made possible by having two different sets of keyboard shortcuts: one set that is active in edit mode and another in command mode.
The most important keyboard shortcuts are Enter
, which enters edit mode, and Esc
, which enters command mode.
In edit mode, most of the keyboard is dedicated to typing into the cell's editor. Thus, in edit mode there are relatively few shortcuts. In command mode, the entire keyboard is available for shortcuts, so there are many more. The Help
->Keyboard Shortcuts
dialog lists the available shortcuts.
I recommend learning the command mode shortcuts - you will need to be sure having pressed Esc
for this - in the following rough order:
enter
, shift-enter
, up/k
, down/j
s
y
, m
, 1-6
, t
a
, b
x
, c
, v
, d
, z
Shift-Enter
or pressing the button in the toolbar above runs a code cell.
Alt-Enter
runs the current cell and inserts a new one below.
Ctrl-Enter
run the current cell and enters command mode.
The "Cell" menu has a number of menu items for running code in different ways. These includes:
The kernel maintains the state of a notebook's computations. You can reset this state by restarting the kernel. This is done by clicking on the in the toolbar above.