Python: The _imagingft C module is not installed

Question

I've tried lots of solution that posted on the net, they don't work.

>>> import _imaging
>>> _imaging.__file__
'C:\\python26\\lib\\site-packages\\PIL\\_imaging.pyd'
>>>

So the system can find the _imaging but still can't use truetype font

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFilter, ImageFont


im = Image.new('RGB', (300,300), 'white')
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(im)
font = ImageFont.truetype('arial.ttf', 14)
draw.text((100,100), 'test text', font = font)

Raises this error:

ImportError: The _imagingft C module is not installed

File "D:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageFont.py", line 34, in __getattr__
  raise ImportError("The _imagingft C module is not installed")

score 85 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 07 '21 at 05:36

85

On Ubuntu, you need to have libfreetype-dev installed before compiling PIL.

i.e.

$ sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
$ sudo -s
\# pip uninstall pil
\# pip install --no-cache-dir pil

PS! Running pip install as sudo will usually install packages to /usr/local/lib on most Ubuntu versions. You may consider to install Pil in a virtual environment (virtualenv or venv) in a path owned by the user instead.

You may also consider installing pillow instead of pil, which I believe is API compatible: https://python-pillow.org. Note that Pillow also requires libfreetype-dev and you might need to follow the same uninstall/install steps if libfreetype-dev was not present during the initial installation.

edited Jan 07 '21 at 05:36

Marek Sapota

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answered Apr 24 '11 at 11:20

Sindre Myren

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Thanks a lot! It helped me instantly! – Piotr Sobczyk Nov 01 '11 at 12:03
There is an error in the "aptitude install aptitude install" ;) – anders Jun 14 '12 at 11:46
12

This doesn't work for me (Ubuntu 12.04, pip 1.1.7, Python 2.7). I uninstalled pip, apitude installed libfreetype6-dev, then ran `sudo pip install --upgrade pil`, but the problem persists. – Matthew Flaschen Dec 12 '12 at 00:41
Didn't work for me either (on Mac). I installed libfreetype from source (from [here](http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/)), then ran `sudo pip install --upgrade pil`, but was told that PIL was up to date. Quite python and reran the original script, got the same error. – scubbo Feb 04 '13 at 05:05
2

This worked for me on Xubuntu. sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev. And then in my virtualenv i ran, pip install Pillow (without sudo). You don't want to sudo pip in virtual environments. – pymarco Dec 04 '13 at 16:47
@pymacro: As you say, you don't want to sudo a pip install if you use a virtualenv. You probably also don't want to sudo any pip or easy_install operation if you can avoid it, as installing things outside of your distor's package management system makes your install kind of dirty. I wanted to keep this comment as short as poosible and still work though. Please take proper care of your Linux install:-) – Sindre Myren Feb 12 '14 at 11:51
This didn't work for me because of the cached version of pillow. I needed to `pip uninstall pillow` and then delete `~/.cache/pip/.../pillow*` and then `pip install pillow`. Once pillow got recompiled everything worked properly. – Kurt Sep 09 '15 at 17:04
1

For the reference of anyone still getting this issue, @Rafay's solution on using `pip install --no-cache-dir pillow` might help. – Sindre Myren May 17 '17 at 21:52
@scubbo I face with Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pil in mac high sierra – Yuseferi Apr 03 '18 at 10:37
@SindreMyren Thanks for this. I had to do the `pip uninstall` and `install` to get it to work. – Torrien Jun 09 '20 at 00:30

score 57 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 08 '11 at 13:18

57

Your installed PIL was compiled without libfreetype.

You can get precompiled installer of PIL (compiled with libfreetype) here (and many other precompiled Python C Modules):

http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/

edited Nov 08 '11 at 13:18

bluish

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answered Oct 25 '10 at 03:24

Imran

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If you want linux binaries you'll have to get it from your distro's software repository I guess. – Imran Oct 25 '10 at 03:40
This was exactly what I needed to get TTF support on Windows. The PIL binaries on the official page were having sxs issues when loading _imagingft.pyd. Thanks! – Michael Labbé Oct 25 '10 at 05:49
Nowadays you can also get Pillow from [PyPI - the Python Package Index](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow). – martineau Apr 18 '13 at 18:25
Looks like there is no PIL (not Pillow) any more. Is there any other source to download it? – LA_ Sep 21 '13 at 16:30
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@LA_ Pillow is a drop-in replacement for PIL – Imran Sep 22 '13 at 05:42
Thanks! Works for me! – soloice Feb 18 '17 at 17:41

score 53 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 13 '15 at 08:57

53

The following worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04.1 64 bit:

sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev

Then, in the virtualenv:

pip uninstall pillow
pip install --no-cache-dir pillow

answered Sep 13 '15 at 08:57

Rafay

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Thanks for the cache! Also, we can remove pip cache before re install Pillow: rm -rf ~/.cache/pip – LennyLip Jan 19 '16 at 08:25
3

Just a comment, in CentOS 6: yum install freetype-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel – azuax Jun 22 '16 at 13:21

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered May 12 '13 at 18:04

17

solution for CentOS 6 (and probably other rpm based):

yum install freetype-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel

pip uninstall pil Pillow
pip install pil Pillow

answered May 12 '13 at 18:04

fsw

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use the first command to install *devel and then install python-imaging using "yum" (in epel repository) to get image displayed. – fanchyna Oct 23 '14 at 19:17

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 01 '12 at 09:11

14

In OS X, I did this to solve the problem:

pip uninstall PIL
ln -s /usr/X11/include/freetype2 /usr/local/include/
ln -s /usr/X11/include/ft2build.h /usr/local/include/
ln -s /usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib /usr/local/lib/
ln -s /usr/X11/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.dylib
pip install PIL

answered Aug 01 '12 at 09:11

suzanshakya

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Didn't work for me - after each line `ln -s ...` I got `ln: /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.dylib: File exists`. Problem persists. Do you have any more ideas? – scubbo Feb 04 '13 at 05:14
Would you try `ln -sf`? `f` overwrites the existing files, so make sure to backup the existing files. – suzanshakya Feb 04 '13 at 10:29
Just tried `ln -sf`, as recommended. After the first such line, I got `ln: /usr/local/include//freetype2: Operation not permitted`. Repeating the operation with `sudo` gave the same error. – scubbo Feb 04 '13 at 18:13
I'm on Mavericks, and /usr/X11/include/freetype2 does not exist on my system. – volvox Jul 29 '14 at 09:14
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@volvox, try installing freetype with `brew install freetype`. – suzanshakya Jul 29 '14 at 10:46
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@suzanshakya thanks that worked perfectly (once I'd installed homebrew). – volvox Jul 29 '14 at 15:57

score 12 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 18 '22 at 10:00

12

Basically, you need to install freetype before installing PIL.

If you're using Homebrew on OS X it's just a matter of:

brew remove pil
brew install freetype
brew install pil

edited Feb 18 '22 at 10:00

Glorfindel

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answered Aug 21 '12 at 14:47

Roshambo

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If it doesn't work, add `brew link freetype` before install PIL. – user805627 Oct 09 '12 at 21:37
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also the package is called `freetype` for macports users. – DanH Feb 21 '13 at 06:02
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I had to reinstall `freetype` and `libjpeg` through brew and then relink them using `brew link --overwrite freetype` and `brew link --overwrite libjpeg`, then reinstalled `pil`, then it finally worked. Hope this helps anyone – gitaarik Jun 20 '13 at 14:23
`brew install pil` return error: `ImportError: The _imagingft C module is not installed` – Deng Haijun Apr 26 '16 at 13:40

score 12 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 26 '13 at 16:22

12

Worked for Ubuntu 12.10:

sudo pip uninstall PIL
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
sudo apt-get install python-imaging

answered Jan 26 '13 at 16:22

DmitrySandalov

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I changed the third line from "sudo apt-get install python-imaging" to "pip install PIL" and it worked. – zephyr Jul 08 '13 at 23:55
1

Worked for me on debian, note that I had libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev libpng12-dev already installed – cgl Dec 26 '14 at 23:13

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

2

For OS X (I'm running 10.6 but should work for others) I was able to get around this error using the advice from this post. Basically you need to install a couple of the dependencies then reinstall PIL.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Jul 10 '12 at 17:48

Bovard

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score 2 · Answer 9 · edited May 30 '14 at 14:20

The followed works on ubuntu 12.04:

pip uninstall PIL
apt-get install libjpeg-dev
apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
apt-get install zlib1g-dev
apt-get install libpng12-dev
pip install PIL --upgrade

when your see "-- JPEG support avaliable" that means it works.

But, if it still doesn't work when your edit your jpeg image, check the python path!!
My python path missed '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL-1.1.7-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/', so I edit the ~/.bashrc add the following code to this file:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL-1.1.7-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/

then, finally, it works!!

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 18 '14 at 13:24

For me none of the solutions posted here so far has worked. I found another solution here: http://codeinthehole.com/writing/how-to-install-pil-on-64-bit-ubuntu-1204/

First install the dev packages:

$ sudo apt-get install python-dev libjpeg-dev libfreetype6-dev zlib1g-dev

Then create some symlinks:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/`uname -i`-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so /usr/lib/
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/`uname -i`-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so /usr/lib/
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/`uname -i`-linux-gnu/libz.so /usr/lib/

Afterwards PIL should compile just fine:

$ pip install PIL --upgrade

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered May 08 '12 at 19:41

Ubuntu 11.10 installs zlib and freetype2 libraries following the multi-arch spec (e.g. /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu). You may use PIL setup environment variables so it can find them. However it only works on PIL versions beyond the pil-117 tag.

export PIL_SETUP_ZLIB_ROOT=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
export PIL_SETUP_FREETYPE_ROOT=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
pip install -U PIL

Since your multi-arch path may be different (x86-64), it's preferable to install the -dev packages and use pkg-config to retrieve the correct path.

pkg-config --variable=libdir zlib
pkg-config --variable=libdir freetype2

Another way given by Barry on Pillow's setup.py is to use dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_MULTIARCH to obtain the proper library directory suffix.

See https://bitbucket.org/effbot/pil-2009-raclette/issue/18

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 07 '14 at 16:52

1

I used homebrew to install freetype and I have the following in /usr/local/lib:

libfreetype.6.dylib libfreetype.a libfreetype.dylib

But the usual:

pip install pil

Does not work for me, so I used:

pip install http://effbot.org/downloads/Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz

answered Jan 07 '14 at 16:52

tc_geophysics

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the second option worked for me. Thanks @tc_geophysics – MegaBytes Jan 20 '16 at 06:14

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 18 '16 at 15:29

1

In my Mac, the following steps in terminal works:

$ brew install freetype
$ sudo pip uninstall pil
$ sudo pip install pillow

hopes it works for you. Good luck!

answered Nov 18 '16 at 15:29

Yun.Lu

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won't `sudo pip` affect the global pil rather than the virtual environment pil? – Saurabh Ariyan May 01 '18 at 13:38

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Dec 08 '20 at 20:13

1

Instead of running: pip install Pillow

Run: pip install Image

darwin Big Sur pyenv

answered Dec 08 '20 at 20:13

xbalazsyf

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what does "darwin Big Sur pyenv" mean? – Ruli Dec 08 '20 at 20:51
@Ruli it means he's using MacOS (darwin), the version is Big Sur and his python setup is via pyenv. – Ryu Kent Feb 11 '21 at 12:06

joest · Answer 15 · 2014-03-18T03:28:28.367

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【solved】
In my ubuntu12.04, after I installed python-imaging using apt-get, it works.

edited Mar 18 '14 at 03:28

answered Mar 18 '14 at 02:50

joest

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Python: The _imagingft C module is not installed

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