add some detail in rst and markdown output

docs/source/interactive/nbconvert.rst

@@ -1,190 +1,205
 .. _nbconvert:
 
 Converting notebooks to other formats
 =====================================
 
 Newly added in the 1.0 release of IPython is the ``nbconvert`` tool, which 
 allows you to convert an ``.ipynb`` notebook document file into various static 
 formats. 
 
 Currently, ``nbconvert`` is provided as a command line tool, run as a script 
 using IPython. A direct export capability from within the 
 IPython Notebook web app is planned. 
 
 The command-line syntax to run the ``nbconvert`` script is::
 
   $ ipython nbconvert --to FORMAT notebook.ipynb
 
 This will convert the IPython document file ``notebook.ipynb`` into the output 
 format given by the ``FORMAT`` string.
 
 The default output format is html, for which the ``--to`` argument may be 
 omitted::
   
   $ ipython nbconvert notebook.ipynb
 
 IPython provides a few templates for some output formats, and these can be
 specified via an additional ``--template`` argument.
 
 The currently supported export formats are:
 
 * ``--to html``
 
   - ``--template full`` (default)
+  
     A full static HTML render of the notebook.
     This looks very similar to the interactive view.
 
   - ``--template basic``
+  
     Simplified HTML, useful for embedding in webpages, blogs, etc.
     This excludes HTML headers.
 
 * ``--to latex``
+
   Latex export.  This generates ``NOTEBOOK_NAME.tex`` file,
   ready for export.  You can automatically run latex on it to generate a PDF
   by adding ``--post PDF``.
   
   - ``--template article`` (default)
+  
     Latex article, derived from Sphinx's howto template.
 
   - ``--template book``
+  
     Latex book, derived from Sphinx's manual template.
 
   - ``--template basic``
+  
     Very basic latex output - mainly meant as a starting point for custom templates.
 
 * ``--to slides``
 
   This generates a Reveal.js HTML slideshow.
   It must be served by an HTTP server.  The easiest way to get this is to add
   ``--post serve`` on the command-line.
 
-* ``--to markdown`` Simple markdown
+* ``--to markdown``
+
+  Simple markdown output.  Markdown cells are unaffected,
+  and code cells are placed in triple-backtick (``\`\`\```) blocks.
+
+* ``--to rst``
 
-* ``--to rst`` reStructuredText
+  Basic reStructuredText output. Useful as a starting point for embedding notebooks
+  in Sphinx docs.
 
-* ``--to python`` Convert a notebook to an executable Python script.
+* ``--to python``
+
+  Convert a notebook to an executable Python script.
   This is the simplest way to get a Python script out of a notebook.
   If there were any magics in the notebook, this may only be executable from
   an IPython session.
 
+
 The output file created by ``nbconvert`` will have the same base name as
 the notebook and will be placed in the current working directory. Any
 supporting files (graphics, etc) will be placed in a new directory with the
 same base name as the notebook, suffixed with ``_files``::
 
   $ ipython nbconvert notebook.ipynb
   $ ls
   notebook.ipynb   notebook.html    notebook_files/
 
 For simple single-file output, such as html, markdown, etc.,
 the output may be sent to standard output with::
     
   $ ipython nbconvert --to markdown notebook.ipynb --stdout
     
 Multiple notebooks can be specified from the command line::
     
   $ ipython nbconvert notebook*.ipynb
   $ ipython nbconvert notebook1.ipynb notebook2.ipynb
     
 or via a list in a configuration file, say ``mycfg.py``, containing the text::
 
   c = get_config()
   c.NbConvertApp.notebooks = ["notebook1.ipynb", "notebook2.ipynb"]
 
 and using the command::
 
   $ ipython nbconvert --config mycfg.py
 
 
 .. _notebook_format:
 
 Notebook JSON file format
 -------------------------
 
 Notebook documents are JSON files with an ``.ipynb`` extension, formatted
 as legibly as possible with minimal extra indentation and cell content broken
 across lines to make them reasonably friendly to use in version-control
 workflows.  You should be very careful if you ever manually edit this JSON
 data, as it is extremely easy to corrupt its internal structure and make the
 file impossible to load.  In general, you should consider the notebook as a
 file meant only to be edited by the IPython Notebook app itself, not for 
 hand-editing.
 
 .. note::
 
      Binary data such as figures are also saved directly in the JSON file.  
      This provides convenient single-file portability, but means that the 
      files can be large; a ``diff`` of binary data is also not very 
      meaningful.  Since the binary blobs are encoded in a single line, they 
      affect only one line of the ``diff`` output, but they are typically very 
      long lines.  You can use the ``Cell | All Output | Clear`` menu option to 
      remove all output from a notebook prior to committing it to version 
      control, if this is a concern.
 
 The notebook server can also generate a pure Python version of your notebook, 
 using the ``File | Download as`` menu option. The resulting ``.py`` file will 
 contain all the code cells from your notebook verbatim, and all Markdown cells 
 prepended with a comment marker.  The separation between code and Markdown
 cells is indicated with special comments and there is a header indicating the
 format version.  All output is removed when exporting to Python.
 
 As an example, consider a simple notebook called ``simple.ipynb`` which 
 contains one Markdown cell, with the content ``The simplest notebook.``, one 
 code input cell with the content ``print "Hello, IPython!"``, and the 
 corresponding output.
 
 The contents of the notebook document ``simple.ipynb`` is the following JSON 
 container::
 
   {
    "metadata": {
     "name": "simple"
    },
    "nbformat": 3,
    "nbformat_minor": 0,
    "worksheets": [
     {
      "cells": [
       {
        "cell_type": "markdown",
        "metadata": {},
        "source": "The simplest notebook."
       },
       {
        "cell_type": "code",
        "collapsed": false,
        "input": "print \"Hello, IPython\"",
        "language": "python",
        "metadata": {},
        "outputs": [
         {
          "output_type": "stream",
          "stream": "stdout",
          "text": "Hello, IPython\n"
         }
        ],
        "prompt_number": 1
       }
      ],
      "metadata": {}
     }
    ]
   }
 
 
 The corresponding Python script is::
 
   # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
   # <nbformat>3.0</nbformat>
 
   # <markdowncell>
 
   # The simplest notebook.
 
   # <codecell>
 
   print "Hello, IPython"
 
 Note that indeed the output of the code cell, which is present in the JSON 
 container, has been removed in the ``.py`` script.