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Setting Up Google Colab

No installs, no setup headaches. Google Colab lets you write and run Python straight from your browser — this is the fastest way to start coding for this course.

What is Google Colab?

Google Colaboratory (Colab) is a free, cloud-hosted Jupyter notebook environment. It runs entirely in your browser, requires zero installation, and comes with Python already set up — including popular libraries like numpy, pandas, and matplotlib. Your notebooks are saved directly to your Google Drive.

All you need is a Google account and a browser. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even Chromebooks.

Step-by-Step Setup

Open Google Colab Go to colab.research.google.com in your browser and sign in with your Google account.
Create a new notebook Click File → New notebook (or hit "New Notebook" on the welcome screen). A blank notebook opens with one empty code cell.
Rename your notebook Click the title at the top left (default: Untitled0.ipynb) and give it a meaningful name, e.g. day1_print_function.ipynb.
Write your first line of code Click inside the first cell and type print("Hello, Colab!").
Run the cell Press Shift + Enter (or click the ▶ play button on the left of the cell) to execute it. The output appears right below the cell.
Add more cells Use + Code at the top (or hover below a cell) to add new code cells. Use + Text to add notes/markdown between code blocks.
Save your work Colab autosaves to Google Drive under a folder called Colab Notebooks. You can also force-save with Ctrl/Cmd + S.

Running Your First Program

Type this into a cell and run it with Shift + Enter:

print("Hello, World!")
print("Welcome to Python with Dutta")
# -> Hello, World!
# -> Welcome to Python with Dutta

Useful Colab Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Run current cell	`Shift + Enter`
Run cell and insert new one below	`Alt + Enter`
Add a code cell below	`Ctrl/Cmd + M B`
Delete current cell	`Ctrl/Cmd + M D`
Save notebook	`Ctrl/Cmd + S`

Installing Extra Packages

Most libraries you'll need are pre-installed. If you ever need one that isn't, install it directly from a code cell using !pip:

!pip install some-package

The ! tells Colab to run the command as a shell command instead of Python code.

Things to Remember

Colab notebooks save automatically to Google Drive → Colab Notebooks.
Shift + Enter runs a cell and moves to the next one — your main workflow shortcut.
Each notebook session runs on a temporary cloud machine; if you close the tab for a long time, you may need to reconnect the runtime (Runtime → Reconnect).
Variables and files created during a session are lost when the runtime disconnects — save important output to Drive if you need it later.
No installation, no environment setup — just open the link and start coding.

Quick Revision

Google Colab is a free, browser-based Python environment — go to colab.research.google.com, sign in with your Google account, create a new notebook, and start writing code in cells. Run a cell with Shift + Enter. Notebooks autosave to your Google Drive, and you can install any extra package with !pip install package-name.