nbconvert: conversion utilities for the IPython notebook format

Overview

nbconvert provides command line utilities to convert to and from IPython notebooks and standard formats.

• ReST
• Markdown
• HTML
• Python script
• LaTeX (through Sphinx)

As these tools mature, these utilities will be merged into IPython.

Requirements

Jinja2

Most of the converters should rely on the Jinja2 templating language.

Markdown

You will need the python markdown module

$ pip install markdown

Docutils

nbconvert requires the latest development version of docutils. This can be installed via

$ curl http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/docutils/?view=tar > docutils.tgz
$ pip install -U docutils.tgz

Sphinx-Latex

We are trying to require as little as possible, but for now, compiling the generated Tex file requires texlive-full.

sudo apt-get install texlive-full

See http://jimmyg.org/blog/2009/sphinx-pdf-generation-with-latex.html

Testing for Sphinx Latex

To test, I place a Test1.ipynb file in my nbconvert directory. Then I run this shell script

mkdir Test1_files
rm Test1_files/*

python nbconvert2.py latex_sphinx_howto Test1.ipynb
mv Test1.tex Test1_files/Test1.tex
cd Test1_files
pdflatex Test1.tex

This script will build a Sphinx-howto out of the Test1 IPython notebook. Replace "howto" with "manual" to build a manual.

Tested against https://github.com/unpingco/Python-for-Signal-Processing

Pandoc

Nbconvert also needs the pandoc multiformat converter to do the actual text conversions. Pandoc is included in most Linux distribution's package managers, and the author's website contains links to Mac OS X and Windows installers.

Pandoc, to convert markdown into latex

sudo apt-get install pandoc

Pygment

For conversion to HTML/LaTeX, pygments is also required for syntax highlighting

$ pip install pygments

Running Tests

Please try to run the tests to avoid regression when commiting a patch, and create new tests when adding features.

$ pip install nose
$ nosetests

Using nbconvert

You will need to either put the source repository in your $PATH or symlink the nbconvert.py script, as well as the css and js subdirectories to a directory in your $PATH. Once this is done, you can call it as:

$ nbconvert -f <FORMAT> notebook.ipynb

Use nbconvert -h for up to date help on the available formats.