docs-v2/content/influxdb/v2.1/notebooks/overview.md

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---
title: Overview of notebooks
description: >
Learn about the building blocks of a notebook.
weight: 101
influxdb/v2.1/tags: [notebooks]
menu:
influxdb_2_1:
name: Overview of notebooks
parent: Notebooks
---
Learn how notebooks can help to streamline and simplify your day-to-day business processes.
See an overview of [notebook concepts](/influxdb/v2.1/notebooks/overview/#notebook-concepts), [notebook controls](/influxdb/v2.1/notebooks/overview/#notebook-controls), and [notebook cell types](/influxdb/v2.1/notebooks/overview/#notebook-cell-types) also know as the basic building blocks of a notebook.
## Notebook concepts
You can think of an InfluxDB notebook as a collection of sequential data processing steps. Each step is represented by a "cell" that performs an action such as querying, visualizing, processing, or writing data to your buckets. Notebooks help you do the following:
- Create snippets of live code, equations, visualizations, and explanatory notes.
- Create alerts or scheduled tasks.
- Downsample and normalize data.
- Build runbooks to share with your teams.
- Output data to buckets.
## Notebook controls
The following options appear at the top of each notebook.
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### Preview/Run mode
- Select **Preview** (or press **Control+Enter**) to display results of each cell without writing data. Helps to verify that cells return expected results before writing data.
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### Run
Select {{< caps >}}Run{{< /caps >}} (or press **Control+Enter**) to display results of each cell and write data to the selected bucket.
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### Save Notebook (appears before first save)
Select {{< caps >}}Save Notebook{{< /caps >}} to save all notebook cells. Once you've saved the notebook, this button disappears and the notebook automatically saves as subsequent changes are made.
{{% note %}}
Saving the notebook does not save cell results. When you open a saved notebook, click {{< caps >}}**Run**{{< /caps >}} to update cell results.
{{% /note %}}
### Local or UTC timezone
Click the timezone drop-down list to select a timezone to use for the notebook. Select either the local time (default) or UTC.
### Time range
Select from the options in the dropdown list or select **Custom Time Range** to enter a custom time range with precision up to nanoseconds, and then click **{{< caps >}}Apply Time Range{{< /caps >}}**.
{{% cloud-only %}}
### Share notebook
To generate a URL for the notebook, click the **{{< icon "share" >}}** icon.
For more detail, see how to [share a notebook](/influxdb/cloud/notebooks/manage-notebooks/#share-a-notebook).
{{% /cloud-only %}}
## Notebook cell types
The following cell types are available for your notebook:
- [Data source](#data-source)
- [Visualization](#visualization)
- [Action](#action)
### Data source
At least one data source (input) cell is required in a notebook for other cells to run.
- **{{< caps >}}Query Builder{{< /caps >}}**: Build a query with the Flux query builder.
- **{{< caps >}}Flux Script{{< /caps >}}**: Enter a raw Flux script.
Data source cells work like the **Query Builder** or **Script Editor** in Data Explorer. For more information, see how to [query data with Flux and the Data Explorer](/influxdb/v2.1/query-data/execute-queries/data-explorer/#query-data-with-flux-and-the-data-explorer).
### Visualization
- **{{< caps >}}Table{{< /caps >}}**: View your data in a table.
- **{{< caps >}}Graph{{< /caps >}}**: View your data in a graph.
- **{{< caps >}}Note{{< /caps >}}**: Create explanatory notes or other information for yourself or your team members.
### Action
- **{{< caps >}}Alert{{< /caps >}}**: Set up alerts. See how to [monitor data and send alerts](/influxdb/v2.1/monitor-alert/).
- **{{< caps >}}Tasks{{< /caps >}}**: Use the notebook to set up and export a task. See how to [manage tasks in InfluxDB](/influxdb/v2.1/process-data/manage-tasks/).