There are a couple different ways to start a new jupyter notebook. Before you can start a new one, you need to have jupyter installed. I recommend that undergraduate engineers use the Anaconda distribution of Python, which comes with jupyter already installed. For help installing Anaconda, see a previous blog post: Installing Anaconda on Windows 10. If jupyter is not available in your version of Python, open a terminal or the Anaconda Prompt and type:

$ pip install jupyter

or

> conda install jupyter

Open a jupyter notebook from the Anaconda Prompt

If you have the Anaconda distribution of Python installed, you have access to the Anaconda Prompt. The Anaconda Prompt is a terminal-like program where you can type text commands to perform different functions. The Anaconda Prompt is a bit like the terminal in MacOSX and the bash terminal in Linux. On Windows it is sort of like the Windows Command Window or the Windows Power Shell.

At the Anaconda Prompt type the command:

> jupyter notebook

This will open up a new web browswer window. On my machine at work, this opens Firefox. It could also open Chrome or Safari depending on what you default web browser is.

You will see a listing of the files and folders in your current working directory (the directory you were in when you typed jupyter notebook)

In the uppper right hand corner, select [New] --> [Python 3]

This will open up a new jupyter notebook in a new browswer tab. On the first line you can try typing import this and clicking [Run] or pressing [Shift] + [Enter]:

Congratulations! You started a new jupyter notebook! To save the notebook, click the [save] icon in the upper left hand corner.

To rename the notebook, click the notebook's name at the top of the page. Enter a new name and click rename