Tutorial 12:  Creating Notebooks

by R. Dover, IMSA

This will show you how to create the simplest of notebooks.  Don't feel the need to make it particularly fancy.  Much can be done to make your notebook look professional, with lots of impressive formatting and controls, but very little is necessary to create a notebook which is useful and still quite respectable.

Text

The first issue is how to create a text cell.  There are two approaches - before or after.  Open a new (blank) notebook by choosingthe  "File" menu and then "New."  Type something - whatever you'd like.  As a default, it appears in bold, input style.

Select the cell bracket to the right.  Now, in the "Format" menu, choose "Style" and then "Text."  The words should change from bold to plain text, and it should look like other text here.  Alternatively, if you're thinking ahead, when ready to begin a new cell, choose "Format," "Style," and "Text."   Then start typing.

Now select this cell by selecting its bracket to the right.  Check out the format menu.  Farther down, you'll see several other choices such as Font, Face, Size, etc.  There are quite a number of possibilities.  Play a little with these.  Hopefully, they are either self-explanatory or a quick experiment will show the effect.  Note the options in the group below this too, such as Text Alignment.

This time, choose one word from what you've written.  (You may want to create and use another cell.)  Highlight it.  Then use some of these same options, such as font or color, to work with this word only.  In other words, you can affect a word or an expression at a time, or you can change all contents of the cell.

Sections

Throughout this tutorial, "Sections" have been used.  Occasionally, "subsections" were also used.  From the "Format" menu, one finds "Style" and then a variety of options.  Just as we used "Text" in the section above, we may also choose "Section" before starting to type.  This choice affects more than just the font and size, but it affects cell grouping as well.  Below this section (not just below this cell - check the cell brackets), start a new cell and choose "Section."  Type something.  Then create a new cell below this.  Do something there - text or input.  (Be creative!)  Note how your new cells are automatically grouped together, but they are not connected to the cells in this section.

Then create a new cell in your section.  Choose "Subsection" and type something.  Create another cell below this.  It should be grouped inside your "subsection" as well as being inside of your "section." One should be able to open and close these sections and subsections as before.  You may also create subsubsections if you wish.

Going in the other direction, from the same submenu, one may choose various levels of titles.  If desired, one may collapse the entire notebook inside of the title.  This can lead to more levels of cell brackets than one really wants to see.

More options

Go back to the Format menu.  Find "Style sheet" and pick something other than "Default"  for your new notebook.  There are quite a number of interesting choices here of designs and colors.  You may also understand very quickly why "Default" is as it is.  These tutorials were shown with a variation of the "Classroom"  style sheet along with a bit more formatting for the titles at the top.

Another menu item allows you to "Edit Style Sheet."  Also, under "Edit," one finds "Preferences..." which allows much more control over many working options.  Have a good time!