Install Jupyter Notebooks in a Virtual Environment

Let's install Jupyter for a different type of experience coding with Python.

Jupyter is an interactive notebook which means you can run blocks of code much like you were working in the Python shell except on a whole new level. A Jupyter Notebook (aka iPython Notebook .ipnb) can be easily shared with others and has become a popular staple of Data Scientists everywhere.

As a bonus, we can use Jupyter in lieu of code editors like Sublime Text or PyCharm. I love my code editor but this is just a nice feature as you'll see very soon.

Let's get it installed.

If use Anaconda, you already have Jupyter installed so feel free to skip this!

Personally, I prefer virtualenv over Anaconda for many reasons amd one of which is when using Anaconda and Django I seem to constantly run into headaches. So, the remainder of this post is showing you how to install it like I do: using virutalenv.

Requirements:

Do you have Python 3 installed?
Do you have virtualenv even installed?

If no to either, go through a below guide for your system setup:

1. Create a new virtualenv

$ cd path/to/your/dev/folder/
$ mkdir plutopy
$ cd plutopy
$ virtualenv -p python3 .

Note you can omit -p python3 if your system's default is python 3. You can check by running python -V

2. Activate your virtualenv

Continuing from above we'll do the following

Mac / Linux Terminal

$ source bin/activate

Windows PowerShell

> .\Scripts Activate

3. Install Jupyter

(plutopy) $ python -V
Python 3.6.5
(plutopy) $ pip install jupyter notebook

4. Start Jupyter

(plutopy) $ jupyter notebook

This should open a web broswer with your Jupyter Notebook running.