# Viewer for VS Code (Notebook Alternative)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** vscode\
**Created:** [August 27, 2025, 6:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878 "2025-08-27T06:07:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alex1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/alex1/32/11771_2.png) [@Alex1](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Alex1)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2025, 6:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878/1 "2025-08-27T06:07:28Z")

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When julia used with multiple files and VS Code.

What are options to render plots, doc, formulas? Basically just some sort of renderer like Notebook Viewer?

For many years and currently I use my own reporting - basically [generating markdown](https://github.com/al6x/profit_hunting/tree/main/mean) or my own report format with julia, saving it as file and just viewing it in browser (see image below), but, there should be some better way. So what are the options?

Something lightweight and simple, ideally **reactive** , when you change code in VS - it should update document automatically (no need for UI control and interactivity in the document itself).

 ![Screen Shot 2025-08-27 at 4.01.11 pm](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/7/f/7f25509d5ffd3246ad6cc81923bd6a3ebafade2d.jpeg)

P.S.

Julia also provides quick view in VSCode, really like it, but - it has huge problem, the preview is small, and when I double click it - it gets bigger, but when I double click on it to minimise it back - it doesn’t work well, it doesn’t remember tis original minimised size, and minimises it to larger view, so you had to manually resize it back to small size, which is very inconvenient and pretty much makes zooming it unusable.

 ![Screen Shot 2025-08-27 at 4.04.56 pm](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/e/2/e274879568743b90a161f8e8e82d1391b9c1d31a.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2025, 7:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878/2 "2025-08-27T07:02:50Z")

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I wrote bonitobook for such use cases:

> **[BonitoBook](https://bonitobook.org/website/)**

A reactive feature is planned as well, so you could have the book rendered in the plotpane while editing the markdown via vscode ( I tend to do that too instead of actually working in the notebook)

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**Author:** ![jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jules](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jules)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2025, 7:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878/3 "2025-08-27T07:24:48Z")

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`quarto preview somenotebook.qmd` also opens the browser with a live preview which will be updated when you change and save the markdown source. [Using Julia – Quarto](https://quarto.org/docs/computations/julia.html#using-the-julia-engine)

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**Author:** ![Alex1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/alex1/32/11771_2.png) [@Alex1](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Alex1)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 7:48am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878/4 "2025-08-29T07:48:10Z")

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If you know a good video demos with similar approaches share links please.

I’m trying to figure the whole picture - what tools available and workflows possible.

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**Author:** ![aplavin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aplavin/32/222056_2.png) [@aplavin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aplavin)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/viewer-for-vs-code-notebook-alternative/131878/5 "2025-08-29T13:34:44Z")

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> [@Alex1](#):
>
> What are options to render plots, doc, formulas? Basically just some sort of renderer like Notebook Viewer?

Don’t forget Jupyter notebooks, they have a great support in VSCode specifically.  
Outside of vscode-specific solutions, consider Pluto notebooks as well.