docs/source/interactive/htmlnotebook.txt

.. _htmlnotebook:

=========================
An HTML Notebook IPython
=========================

The IPython Notebook consists of two related components:

* An XML/JSON based Notebook document format for recording and distributing
  Python code and rich text.
* A web-based user interface for authoring and running notebook documents.

The Notebook can be used by starting the Notebook server with the 
command::

    $ ipython notebook

This server uses the same ZeroMQ-based two process kernel architecture as
the QT Console as well Tornado for serving HTTP requests. Some of the main
features of the Notebook include:

* Display rich data (png/html/latex/svg) in the browser as a result of
  computations.
* Compose text cells using HTML and Markdown.
* Import and export notebook documents in range of formats (.ipynb, .json, .py).
* In browser syntax highlighting, tab completion and autoindentation.
* Inline matplotlib plots that can be stored in Notebook documents and opened
  later.

See :ref:`our installation documentation <install_index>` for directions on
how to install the notebook and its dependencies.

Basic Usage
===========

Notebook document format
========================