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Creating Notebooks

As you grow more sophisticated in using Mathematica , you will wish to encapsulate your calculations, graphics, and the profound insight they have injected into your cerebellum in an easy to read format by producing a Notebook. These are transportable (since they are simply ASCII files) to other computer platforms, including Unix boxes, Macs, PC's running Windows or Vista, and (of course) Linux. Producing a Notebook is easy: it's usually done as a `retrofit' once things are running, but ideally is done from scratch so you get in the habit of adding comments. The procedure is:
  1. Select Format Show Toolbar. This will insert a selectable menu slot just above your Notebook.
  2. Select a cell of the Notebook (not the output, only the input to Mathematica ).
  3. Select the style you wish this line to be: Input, Text, Output (to store output information in the Notebook), or even Title, Subtitle, Section, or Subsection. Each choice determines the format of the cell.
  4. It's a good idea to run it again `from scratch' (to verify that nothing unexpected has crept in), then delete all output before saving the now nicely formatted Notebook.

next up previous
Next: Runaway calculations Up: Getting started Previous: Importing and exporting data
David Wood 2007-06-25