Python alternative to R Markdown

Question

People who work with R are undoubtedly familiar with the R markdown package.

I am a vivid python user and use Mistune for converting markdown to html pages. It also supports code highlighting and mathjax to embed latex formulas in html. However there's one type of functionality missing.

R markdown has the possibility of executing R code inline (and rendering the result to html) or rendering graphs inline. That saves time and makes the documentation maintainable as you don't need to manually prepare the output of that function or manually prepare and save a graph since it's rendered on the fly.

Is there such a possibility or library in python, perhaps in combination with Mistune?

Solution

You should really check out ipython notebook (now it's called Jupyter because it supports many languages including R), it can be a little difficult to install for those beginning with Python, so I might also suggest the Anaconda Python Distribution which includes it by default.

allows you to execute code, enter markdown formatted text, display graphs and much much more.

Comments

[Tim]

This looks like exactly what I need. Can it export the endresult to a standalone html so other users won't need to rely on an installation of notebook/python to view the documentation?

[iLoveTux]

Yes it can export to html, pdf, python source and REStructuredText.

[asmaier]

Also have a look at jupinx: medium.com/quantecon-blog/introducing-jupinx-60ba9fc12f4f . It converts REStructuredText into jupyter notebooks.

[WestCoastProjects]

Notebooks while indispensable are not the same as rmarkdown in which the entire structure fits within a standard editor. A few of us prefer initial large-scale editing to happen not within the notebook editor environment.

[WestCoastProjects]

just noticed the post by @asmaier about jupinx : you should actually make that a new answer: I for one would upvote it

[Paul Rougieux]

@WestCoastProjects the Jupytext extension helps converging jupyter notebooks (which are html files with large blobs including graphical and other outputs) to markdown files containing text and source code on the fly. A markdown version is very useful to archive the notebooks in git and diff them.