Notes on using Jupyter

Keyboard Shortcuts

General

  • See Help menu for list of keyboard shortcuts
  • For Windows users, the Ctrl key is the equivalent of the Cmd key
  • Cmd-Shift-P: Brings up command palette (or use the toolbar icon)

Most useful shortcuts.

In EDIT mode

  • ESC: switch to COMMAND mode
  • Tab: auto-complete
  • Shift-Tab: tooltip (e.g. to get function arguments)
  • Cmd-/: toggle commenting of highlighted code

In COMMAND mode

  • Return: switch to EDIT mode
  • F: Brings up Find and Replace dialog (toggle option to replace within selected cell or whole notebook)
  • A: Create new cell above
  • B: Create new cell below
  • DD: Delete selected cell(s)
  • M: Switch to Markdown cell
  • Y: Switch to Code cell
  • Shift-Down: Select multiple cells
  • Shift-Up: Select multiple cells
  • Shift-M: Merge selected cells
  • Shift-Return: Execute selected cell(s)
  • Alt-Return: Execute selected cell(s) and insert new cell below

Magic commands

%lsmagic

Available line magics:
%alias  %alias_magic  %autocall  %automagic  %autosave  %bookmark  %cat  %cd  %clear  %colors  %config  %connect_info  %cp  %debug  %dhist  %dirs  %doctest_mode  %ed  %edit  %env  %gui  %hist  %history  %killbgscripts  %ldir  %less  %lf  %lk  %ll  %load  %load_ext  %loadpy  %logoff  %logon  %logstart  %logstate  %logstop  %ls  %lsmagic  %lx  %macro  %magic  %man  %matplotlib  %mkdir  %more  %mv  %notebook  %page  %pastebin  %pdb  %pdef  %pdoc  %pfile  %pinfo  %pinfo2  %popd  %pprint  %precision  %profile  %prun  %psearch  %psource  %pushd  %pwd  %pycat  %pylab  %qtconsole  %quickref  %recall  %rehashx  %reload_ext  %rep  %rerun  %reset  %reset_selective  %rm  %rmdir  %run  %save  %sc  %set_env  %store  %sx  %system  %tb  %time  %timeit  %unalias  %unload_ext  %who  %who_ls  %whos  %xdel  %xmode

Available cell magics:
%%!  %%HTML  %%SVG  %%bash  %%capture  %%debug  %%file  %%html  %%javascript  %%js  %%latex  %%perl  %%prun  %%pypy  %%python  %%python2  %%python3  %%ruby  %%script  %%sh  %%svg  %%sx  %%system  %%time  %%timeit  %%writefile

Automagic is ON, % prefix IS NOT needed for line magics.

%%file hello.txt
Hello, world
This is thing number 1
This is thing number 2
This is thing number 3

Writing hello.txt

%cat hello.txt

Hello, world
This is thing number 1
This is thing number 2
This is thing number 3

Using shell commands

Use ! to run commands in the shell or %%bash to run multi-line commands.

! tail -n3 hello.txt | head -n2

This is thing number 1
This is thing number 2

%%bash

for i in $(ls); do
    echo item: $i
done

item: 00_Jupyter.ipynb
item: 01_Introduction_To_Python.ipynb
item: 02_Functions.ipynb
item: 03_Classes.ipynb
item: hello.txt

Load extension for R

This allows you to execute R code in a cell and pass variables in and out.

%load_ext rpy2.ipython

a, b = 2, 5

%%R -i a,b -o x
x <- a:b

x

array([2, 3, 4, 5], dtype=int32)

Getting help

  • Use the Help menu for general documentation
  • Use ? before or after a name to get information about the name
  • Use ?? before or after a name to also get the source if available

Further exploration

See blog post 28 Jupyter Notebook tips, tricks and shortcuts