Installing

There are lots of different ways to install matplotlib, and the best

way depends on what operating system you are using, what you already

have installed, and how you want to use it. To avoid wading through

all the details (and potential complications) on this page, the

easiest thing for you to do is use one of the pre-packaged python

distributions that already provide matplotlib built-in. The Enthought

Python Distribution `(EPD)

<http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php>`_ for Windows, OS X or

Redhat is an excellent choice that "just works" out of the box.

Another excellent alternative for Windows users is `Python (x, y)

<http://www.pythonxy.com/foreword.php>`_ which tends to be updated a

bit more frequently. Both of these packages include matplotlib and

pylab, and *lots* of other useful tools. matplotlib is also packaged

for almost every major Linux distribution. So if you are on Linux,

your package manager will probably provide matplotlib prebuilt.

Manually installing pre-built packages

General instructions

For some people, the prepackaged pythons discussed above are not an

option. That's OK, it's usually pretty easy to get a custom install

working. You will first need to find out if you have python installed

on your machine, and if not, install it. The official python builds

are available for download `here <http://www.python.org/download>`_,

but OS X users please read :ref:`which-python-for-osx`.

Once you have python up and running, you will need to install `numpy

<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369&package_id=175103>`_.

numpy provides high-performance array data structures and mathematical

functions, and is a requirement for matplotlib. You can test your

progress::

matplotlib requires numpy version 1.1 or later. Although it is not a

requirement to use matplotlib, we strongly encourage you to install

`ipython <http://ipython.scipy.org/dist>`_, which is an interactive

shell for python that is matplotlib-aware.

Next, we need to get matplotlib installed. We provide prebuilt

binaries for OS X and Windows on the matplotlib `download

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/>`_ page. Click on

the latest release of the "matplotlib" package, choose your python

version (e.g., 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7) and your platform (macosx or win32).

If you have any problems, please check the :ref:`installing-faq`,

search using Google, and/or post a question to the `mailing list

<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=80706>`_.

If you are on Debian/Ubuntu Linux, it suffices to do::

Instructions for installing our OSX binaries are found in the FAQ

:ref:`install_osx_binaries`.

Once you have ipython, numpy and matplotlib installed, you can use

ipython's "pylab" mode to have a MATLAB-like environment that automatically

handles most of the configuration details for you, so you can get up

and running quickly::

Note that when testing matplotlib installations from the interactive

python console, there are some issues relating to user interface

toolkits and interactive settings that are discussed in

:ref:`mpl-shell`.

Installing on Windows

If you don't already have python installed, you may want to consider

using the Enthought edition of python, which has scipy, numpy, and

wxpython, plus many other useful packages, preinstalled - `Enthought

Python <http://www.enthought.com/python>`_. With the Enthought

edition of python + matplotlib installer, the following backends

should work out of the box: agg, wx, wxagg, tkagg, ps, pdf and svg.

For standard python installations, you will also need to install numpy

in addition to the matplotlib installer. On some systems you will

also need to download msvcp71.dll library, which you can download from

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcp71 or other

sites. You will need to unzip the archive and drag the dll into

:file:`c:\windows\system32`.

All of the GUI backends run on Windows, but TkAgg is probably the

best for interactive use from the standard python shell or ipython.

The Windows installer (:file:`*.exe`) on the download page contains all the

code you need to get up and running. However, there are many

examples that are not included in the Windows installer. If you

want to try the many demos that come in the matplotlib source

distribution, download the zip file and look in the :file:`examples`

subdirectory.

.. _install_from_source:

Installing from source

If you are interested in contributing to matplotlib

development, running the latest source code, or just like to

build everything yourself, it is not difficult to build matplotlib

from source. Grab the latest *tar.gz* release file from `sourceforge

<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=80706>`_, or if

you want to develop matplotlib or just need the latest bugfixed

version, grab the latest git version :ref:`install-from-git`.

Once you have satisfied the requirements detailed below (mainly

python, numpy, libpng and freetype), you can build matplotlib::

We provide a `setup.cfg

<https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/raw/master/setup.cfg.template>`_

file that goes with :file:`setup.py` which you can use to customize

the build process. For example, which default backend to use, whether

some of the optional libraries that matplotlib ships with are

installed, and so on. This file will be particularly useful to those

packaging matplotlib.

If you have installed prerequisites to nonstandard places and need to

inform matplotlib where they are, edit ``setupext.py`` and add the base

dirs to the ``basedir`` dictionary entry for your ``sys.platform``.

e.g., if the header to some required library is in

``/some/path/include/someheader.h``, put ``/some/path`` in the

``basedir`` list for your platform.

.. _install_requirements:

Build requirements

These are external packages which you will need to install before

installing matplotlib. Windows users only need the first two (python

and numpy) since the others are built into the matplotlib Windows

installers available for download at the sourceforge site. If you are

building on OSX, see :ref:`build_osx`. If you are installing

dependencies with a package manager on Linux, you may need to install the

development packages (look for a "-dev" postfix) in addition to the

libraries themselves.

.. note::

If you are on debian/ubuntu, you can get all the dependencies

required to build matplotlib with::

If you are on Fedora/RedHat, you can get all the dependencies

required to build matplotlib by first installing ``yum-builddep``

and then running::

This does not build matplotlib, but it does get the install the

build dependencies, which will make building from source easier.

:term:`python` 2.4 (or later but not python3)

matplotlib requires python 2.4 or later (`download <http://www.python.org/download/>`__)

:term:`numpy` 1.1 (or later)

array support for python (`download

<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369&package_id=175103>`__)

libpng 1.2 (or later)

library for loading and saving :term:`PNG` files (`download

<http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html>`__). libpng requires

zlib. If you are a Windows user, you can ignore this because we

build support into the matplotlib single-click installer

:term:`freetype` 1.4 (or later)

library for reading true type font files. If you are a windows

user, you can ignore this since we build support into the

matplotlib single click installer.

**Optional**

These are optional packages which you may want to install to use

matplotlib with a user interface toolkit. See

:ref:`what-is-a-backend` for more details on the optional matplotlib

backends and the capabilities they provide.

:term:`tk` 8.3 or later

The TCL/Tk widgets library used by the TkAgg backend

:term:`pyqt` 3.1 or later

The Qt3 widgets library python wrappers for the QtAgg backend

:term:`pyqt` 4.0 or later

The Qt4 widgets library python wrappers for the Qt4Agg backend

:term:`pygtk` 2.4 or later

The python wrappers for the GTK widgets library for use with the

GTK or GTKAgg backend

:term:`wxpython` 2.8 or later

The python wrappers for the wx widgets library for use with the

WX or WXAgg backend

:term:`pyfltk` 1.0 or later

The python wrappers of the FLTK widgets library for use with FLTKAgg

**Required libraries that ship with matplotlib**

:term:`agg` 2.4

The antigrain C++ rendering engine. matplotlib links against the

agg template source statically, so it will not affect anything on

your system outside of matplotlib.

:term:`pytz` 2007g or later

timezone handling for python datetime objects. By default,

matplotlib will install pytz if it isn't already installed on your

system. To override the default, use :file:`setup.cfg` to force or

prevent installation of pytz.

:term:`dateutil` 1.1 or later

provides extensions to python datetime handling. By default, matplotlib

will install dateutil if it isn't already installed on your

system. To override the default, use :file:`setup.cfg` to force

or prevent installation of dateutil.

.. _build_osx:

Building on OSX

The build situation on OSX is complicated by the various places one

can get the libpng and freetype requirements (darwinports, fink,

/usr/X11R6) and the different architectures (e.g., x86, ppc, universal) and

the different OSX version (e.g., 10.4 and 10.5). We recommend that you build

the way we do for the OSX release: get the source from the tarball or the

git repository and follow the instruction in :file:`README.osx`.