# Writing using Notebooks

This section looks at using Notebooks as the source file for
writing lecture content.

```{note}
**jupyter notebooks** are capable of storing extended `myst` syntax
in `markdown` cells but can't currently render `directives` and `roles`
natively. These items are rendered using `jupyter-book` as it builds
`html` or `pdf` files.
```

## Building using Jupyter Book

You can write lectures directly in `Jupyter Notebooks`. While notebooks can't render
the full `MyST` syntax it is happy to store the markup as markdown without syntax
highlighting support. This will get parsed when the notebook is read by `jupyter book`
when building the `html` or `pdf` files.

There is no special configuration required you can:

1. write a notebook
2. add the notebook name to the `_toc.yml` file such as `markov` without the `ipynb`
3. use `jupyter-book build lecture` or `jupyter-book build ./` if you are already in
   a project folder.

```{tip}
You can actually use both `ipynb` and `md` in the same project. You can prototype in
jupyter notebooks and the convert them over to `md` at the end for easy maintenance
and version control.
```

## Converting to Myst Markdown

You can also easily convert [ipynb to md using jupytext](converting/ipynb-md)