.NB

Introduction

An .nb file is a notebook from Wolfram Research’s Mathematica, which has used notebooks since its first version in 1988. A notebook holds text, Wolfram Language input, the output it produced, such as formulas and graphics, and interactive controls, all as cells in one document. The same files are used by the other Wolfram desktop products and the Wolfram Cloud.

Structure

A notebook is a plain text file, readable in any text editor, holding a single Wolfram Language expression. It starts with comments giving the content type application/vnd.wolfram.mathematica and the program that wrote it, and cache information that lets Mathematica open large files quickly. Then comes Notebook[{…}], a list of Cell expressions, each with its content and a style such as "Title", "Text", "Input" or "Output". Cells can be grouped into sections, and graphics are stored as expressions too, or as compressed data.

Notebook[{
  Cell["Squares", "Title"],
  Cell[BoxData[RowBox[{"Table", "[", RowBox[{RowBox[{"n", "^", "2"}], ",", RowBox[{"{", RowBox[{"n", ",", "5"}], "}"}]}], "]"}]], "Input"],
  Cell[BoxData[RowBox[{"{", RowBox[{"1", ",", "4", ",", "9", ",", "16", ",", "25"}], "}"}]], "Output"]
}]

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