You can already copy a notebook without creating a fork, because any two notebooks can be merged. The steps are not intuitive, so bear with me:
- Open the notebook that you want to copy. This is the ORIGINAL. Access the notebook ID:
- for private or shared notebooks: The part in the URL after “/d/”.
- for published notebooks: Access the notebook history; the ID is the part of the URL between “/d/” and “@”.
- Create a new notebook, save the first cell. This is the COPY.
- Open the URL
https://observablehq.com/compare/COPY...ORIGINAL, replacing COPY and ORIGINAL with their respective notebook IDs. - Hit the Merge button in the upper right, confirm, and you’re done.
Note: Observable calls the notebook from which we merge the target. I don’t know why, don’t let yourself be irritated by that. This is what you’ll want:
