Create IPython Notebooks from markdown

notedown is a simple tool to create IPython notebooks from markdown.

Usage:

notedown input.md > output.ipynb

Installation:

pip install notedown

It is really simple and separates your markdown into code and not code. Code goes into code cells, not-code goes into markdown cells.

Fenced code blocks annotated with a language other than python are read into cells using IPython's %% cell magic.

Why?

I don't know. Maybe you prefer writing in markdown.

What notedown does not do:

• run code cells
• embed figures

Conversion from notebook to markdown

Converting from an IPython notebook to markdown is done using nbconvert:

ipython nbconvert notebook.ipynb --to markdown

The IPython markdown export is currently quite basic, so you can't expect to convert markdown -> notebook -> markdown and get back your original markdown.

Running an IPython Notebook

You can open the notebook in your browser with

ipython notebook your_notebook.ipynb

and use Cell -> Run all in the menu.

You can run notebooks non-interactively from the command line using [runipy][]:

pip install runipy
runipy your_notebook.ipynb

TODO

• support more markdowns
• allow other cell types?
• allow different language code cells (using %%lang magic)
• allow code attributes? pass to cell creator?
• code block format agnostic (fenced / indented)