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Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center
Cell
  • See Also
    • ExpressionCell
    • TextCell
    • CellGroup
    • Notebook
    • CellPrint
    • CellObject
  • Related Guides
    • Low-Level Notebook Structure
    • Low-Level Notebook Programming
  • Workflows
    • Create a Section Heading
    • Delete In, Out Cell Labels
    • Programmatically Insert a Cell in a Notebook
    • Add a Banner to a Notebook
  • Tech Notes
    • Cells as Wolfram Language Expressions
    • The Structure of Cells
    • Options for Cells
    • See Also
      • ExpressionCell
      • TextCell
      • CellGroup
      • Notebook
      • CellPrint
      • CellObject
    • Related Guides
      • Low-Level Notebook Structure
      • Low-Level Notebook Programming
    • Workflows
      • Create a Section Heading
      • Delete In, Out Cell Labels
      • Programmatically Insert a Cell in a Notebook
      • Add a Banner to a Notebook
    • Tech Notes
      • Cells as Wolfram Language Expressions
      • The Structure of Cells
      • Options for Cells

Cell[contents]

is the low-level representation of a cell inside a Wolfram System notebook.

Cell[contents,"style"]

represents a cell in the specified style.

Cell[contents,"style1","style2",…]

represents a cell with multiple styles applied to it.

Details
Details and Options Details and Options
Examples  
Basic Examples  
Scope  
Options  
CellFrame  
CellFrameColor  
CellFrameLabels  
Show More Show More
CellTags  
text
Editable  
FontColor  
FontSize  
Hyphenation  
ShowCellBracket  
Properties & Relations  
See Also
Tech Notes
Related Guides
Related Workflows
History
Cite this Page
BUILT-IN SYMBOL
  • See Also
    • ExpressionCell
    • TextCell
    • CellGroup
    • Notebook
    • CellPrint
    • CellObject
  • Related Guides
    • Low-Level Notebook Structure
    • Low-Level Notebook Programming
  • Workflows
    • Create a Section Heading
    • Delete In, Out Cell Labels
    • Programmatically Insert a Cell in a Notebook
    • Add a Banner to a Notebook
  • Tech Notes
    • Cells as Wolfram Language Expressions
    • The Structure of Cells
    • Options for Cells
    • See Also
      • ExpressionCell
      • TextCell
      • CellGroup
      • Notebook
      • CellPrint
      • CellObject
    • Related Guides
      • Low-Level Notebook Structure
      • Low-Level Notebook Programming
    • Workflows
      • Create a Section Heading
      • Delete In, Out Cell Labels
      • Programmatically Insert a Cell in a Notebook
      • Add a Banner to a Notebook
    • Tech Notes
      • Cells as Wolfram Language Expressions
      • The Structure of Cells
      • Options for Cells

Cell

Cell[contents]

is the low-level representation of a cell inside a Wolfram System notebook.

Cell[contents,"style"]

represents a cell in the specified style.

Cell[contents,"style1","style2",…]

represents a cell with multiple styles applied to it.

Details

  • Wolfram System notebooks consist of lists of Cell objects.
  • You can see the form of a cell as an expression by using the Show Expression menu command in the standard Wolfram System front end.
  • You can access cells in a notebook directly using the front end. You can also access the cells from the kernel using NotebookRead and NotebookWrite, or using Options, and SetOptions on NotebookSelection[obj].
  • The contents of cells can be the following:
  • "text"plain text
    TextData[exprs]general text objects
    BoxData[boxes]formatted Wolfram Language expressions
    OutputFormData["itext","otext"]
    text as generated by OutputForm
    RawData[data]unformatted expressions
    GraphicsData["type",data]non-expression graphics or sound data
    CellGroupData[{cell1,cell2,…},status]group of cells
    StyleData["style"]sample cell for a particular style
  • In any given notebook, a collection of possible cell styles is defined, typically with names such as "Title", "Section", "Input", and "Output".
  • Cells can have many options, including:
  • Backgroundthe color of the background for the cell
    CellFrame whether to draw a frame around the cell
    CellTags tags for the cell
    Editable whether to allow the contents of the cell to be edited
    FontSize the default size of text in the cell
    TextAlignmenthow to align text in the cell

Examples

open all close all

Basic Examples  (2)

Create a text cell from a low-level description:

Create an expression cell from a low-level description:

Scope  (5)

Cells can contain complex typeset forms:

Cells can contain graphics:

Cells can contain interactive controls:

Cells can contain other cells:

Combine multiple styles in a cell:

I'm a TB cell
I'm a Small cell
I'm both

Options  (10)

CellFrame  (1)

Put a frame around a cell:

Specify a width for the frame:

CellFrameColor  (1)

CellFrameLabels  (2)

Cell frame labels can be displayed without a frame:

CellTags  (1)

Use a cell tag to locate a particular cell by referring to the tag:

text

NotebookFind can also be used:

Editable  (1)

By default cells are editable; set Editable to False to disable this behavior:

FontColor  (1)

FontSize  (1)

Hyphenation  (1)

Define some text:

The same text with and without hyphenation:

ShowCellBracket  (1)

Cells with and without a cell bracket, and with a cell bracket that shows up only on mouseover:

Properties & Relations  (1)

NotebookPut creates notebook windows from low-level Notebook and Cell expressions:

NotebookRead returns a Cell expression for the selected cell:

See Also

ExpressionCell  TextCell  CellGroup  Notebook  CellPrint  CellObject

Tech Notes

    ▪
  • Cells as Wolfram Language Expressions
  • ▪
  • The Structure of Cells
  • ▪
  • Options for Cells

Related Guides

    ▪
  • Low-Level Notebook Structure
  • ▪
  • Low-Level Notebook Programming

Related Workflows

    Related Workflows
    ▪
  • Create a Section Heading
  • ▪
  • Delete In, Out Cell Labels
  • ▪
  • Programmatically Insert a Cell in a Notebook
  • ▪
  • Add a Banner to a Notebook

History

Introduced in 1996 (3.0) | Updated in 2007 (6.0) ▪ 2017 (11.2)

Wolfram Research (1996), Cell, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html (updated 2017).

Text

Wolfram Research (1996), Cell, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html (updated 2017).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 1996. "Cell." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2017. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (1996). Cell. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_cell, author="Wolfram Research", title="{Cell}", year="2017", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html}", note=[Accessed: 04-February-2026]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_cell, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={Cell}, year={2017}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Cell.html}, note=[Accessed: 04-February-2026]}

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