Lesson 3. Markdown in Jupyter Notebook
In this lesson, you will learn how to add Markdown
documentation to Jupyter Notebook
files (.ipynb).
Learning Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
- Add
Markdown
syntax for titles, lists, and hyperlinks to webpages and images - Add
Markdown
syntax to bold and italicize words
What You Need
Be sure that you have completed the lessons on The Jupyter Notebook Interface.
Markdown Styling
In previous lessons, you learned that Markdown is simple plain text that is styled using special characters, including:
#: to create a header element
**: to bold text
*: to italicize text
: to indicate code blocks
You also learned how to add new Markdown
cells to your Jupyter Notebook using Menu tools and Keyboard Shortcuts to create new cells. You also learned how to change the default type of the cell by clicking in the cell and selecting a new cell type (e.g. Markdown
) in the cell type menu in the toolbar.
Function | Keyboard Shortcut | Menu Tools |
---|---|---|
Create new cell | Esc + a (above), Esc + b (below) | Insert→ Insert Cell Above OR Insert → Insert Cell Below |
Copy Cell | c | Copy Key |
Paste Cell | v | Paste Key |
Titles
You also learned that you can use Markdown
to create titles and subtitles using the following syntax:
# This is the biggest title
## This is a subtitle
### This is a smaller subtitle
#### This is an even smaller subtitle
These titles are already present on this page as Markdown
(e.g. Markdown Styling above is a subtitle).
In a Jupyter Notebook
file, you can double-click in any Markdown
cell to see the syntax, and then run the cell again to see the Markdown
formatting.
Lists
You can also use Markdown
to create lists using the following syntax:
* This is a bullet list
* This is a bullet list
* This is a bullet list
1. And you can also create ordered lists
2. by using numbers
3. and listing new items in the lists
4. on their own lines
It will render as follows:
- This is a bullet list
- This is a bullet list
- This is a bullet list
- And you can also create ordered lists
- by using numbers
- and listing new items in the lists
- on their own lines
Notice that you have space between the *
or 1.
and the text. The space triggers the action to create the list using Markdown
.
Bold and Italicize
You can also use **
to bold or *
to italicize words. To bold and italicize words, the symbols have to be touching the word and have to be repeated before and after the word using the following syntax:
*This is an italicized word, not a bullet list*
**This is a bold word, not a bullet list**
* **This is a bullet item with bold words**
* *This is a bullet item with italicized words*
It will render as follows:
This is an italicized word, not a bullet list This is a bold word, not a bullet list
- This is a bullet item with bold words
- This is a bullet item with italicized words
Hyperlinks
You can also use Markdown
to create hyperlinks to websites using the following syntax:
The course website can be found at <a href="http://earthdatascience.org/courses/earth-analytics-bootcamp/" target="_blank">this link</a>.
It will render as follows:
The course website can be found at this link.
Images
You can also use Markdown
to link to images on the web using the following syntax:
<figure>
<a href="https://www.fullstackpython.com/img/logos/markdown.png">
<img src="https://www.fullstackpython.com/img/logos/markdown.png" alt="You can use Markdown to add images to Jupyter Notebook files, such as this image of the Markdown logo. Source: Full Stack Python."></a>
<figcaption> You can use Markdown to add images to Jupyter Notebook files, such as this image of the Markdown logo. Source: Full Stack Python.
</figcaption>
</figure>
It will render as follows:

Optional Challenge 1
From your
ea-bootcamp-hw-1-yourusername
directory, open theJupyter Notebook
file for Homework 1 (ea-bootcamp-hw-1.ipynb
). Notice that there are existing cells in this notebook.Add a new
Markdown
cell below the existing cells and include:- A title for the notebook (e.g.
Earth Analytics Bootcamp - Homework 1
) - A bullet list with:
- A bold word for
Author:
and then add text for your name. - A bold word for
Date:
and then add text for today’s date.
- A bold word for
- A title for the notebook (e.g.
Optional Challenge 2
From your
markdown
directory created in the previous lesson, open theJupyter Notebook
file you created (e.g.jpalomino-markdown.ipynb
).- Add a
Markdown
cell as the first cell of this empty notebook and include:- A title for the notebook (e.g.
Earth Analytics Bootcamp - Markdown Reference
) - A bold word for
Author:
and then add text for your name (e.g.Jenny Palomino
)
- A title for the notebook (e.g.
- Add another
Markdown
cell below your title cell and include:- A list of your three favorite foods (e.g. blueberries, chocolate bars, avocados)
- A hyperlink (i.e. webpages) for each item in your list of favorite foods
- An image for each item in your listed favorite foods
Share on
Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn
Leave a Comment