Jupyter Notebooks in Google Colab

Alternatively, if you want to use Python without worrying about installing libraries or managing dependencies, you can use Jupyter notebooks and run them directly in Google Colab — a free, cloud-based platform provided by Google.

1. What is Google Colab?

Google Colab (short for Collaboratory) is a cloud service that lets you run Jupyter notebooks in your browser, with no local setup required.

Key advantages: - No need to install Python or libraries. - Access to free GPUs and TPUs for computation. - Direct integration with Google Drive for storage. - Same syntax and workflow as local Jupyter notebooks (.ipynb files).

You can think of it as “Jupyter Notebook in the cloud.”

2. How to open a notebook in Colab

Option A – Start from scratch

  1. Go to https://colab.research.google.com
  2. Choose File → New notebook.
  3. A notebook with a Python 3 runtime will open in your browser.
  4. You can rename it and save it to your Google Drive.

Option B – Open an existing notebook

If you already have a .ipynb file:

  1. Upload it to Google Drive.
  2. Right-click → Open with → Google Colaboratory.
    (If Colab isn’t listed, choose Connect more apps → search for Colaboratory.)
  3. Alternatively, you can drag-and-drop a notebook directly into an open Colab window.

3. Installing additional libraries

Colab comes pre-installed with most scientific packages (NumPy, pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.).

To install any additional packages, use pip directly in a cell:

!pip install seaborn xgboost shap