Python: The _imagingft C module is not installed

83,738

Solution 1

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/

Solution 2

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.

Solution 3

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

Solution 4

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

Solution 5

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

View more solutions

83,738

user483144

Updated on July 05, 2022

Comments

user483144 6 months

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")

Imran about 12 years

If you want linux binaries you'll have to get it from your distro's software repository I guess.
noway about 12 years

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!
Piotr Sobczyk about 11 years

Thanks a lot! It helped me instantly!
anders over 10 years

There is an error in the "aptitude install aptitude install" ;)
user805627 about 10 years

If it doesn't work, add brew link freetype before install PIL.
Matthew Flaschen about 10 years

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.
scubbo almost 10 years

Didn't work for me either (on Mac). I installed libfreetype from source (from here), 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 almost 10 years

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?
suzanshakya almost 10 years

Would you try ln -sf? f overwrites the existing files, so make sure to backup the existing files.
scubbo almost 10 years

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.
DanH almost 10 years

also the package is called freetype for macports users.
martineau over 9 years

Nowadays you can also get Pillow from PyPI - the Python Package Index.
gitaarik over 9 years

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
zephyr over 9 years

I changed the third line from "sudo apt-get install python-imaging" to "pip install PIL" and it worked.
LA_ over 9 years

Looks like there is no PIL (not Pillow) any more. Is there any other source to download it?
Imran over 9 years

@LA_ Pillow is a drop-in replacement for PIL
pymarco about 9 years

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.
Sindre Myren almost 9 years

@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:-)
volvox over 8 years

I'm on Mavericks, and /usr/X11/include/freetype2 does not exist on my system.
suzanshakya over 8 years

@volvox, try installing freetype with brew install freetype.
volvox over 8 years

@suzanshakya thanks that worked perfectly (once I'd installed homebrew).
fanchyna about 8 years

use the first command to install *devel and then install python-imaging using "yum" (in epel repository) to get image displayed.
cgl almost 8 years

Worked for me on debian, note that I had libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev libpng12-dev already installed
Kurt over 7 years

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.
LennyLip almost 7 years

Thanks for the cache! Also, we can remove pip cache before re install Pillow: rm -rf ~/.cache/pip
MegaBytes almost 7 years

the second option worked for me. Thanks @tc_geophysics
Deng Haijun over 6 years

brew install pil return error: ImportError: The _imagingft C module is not installed
azuax over 6 years

Just a comment, in CentOS 6: yum install freetype-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel
soloice almost 6 years

Thanks! Works for me!
Sindre Myren over 5 years

For the reference of anyone still getting this issue, @Rafay's solution on using pip install --no-cache-dir pillow might help.
Yuseferi over 4 years

@scubbo I face with Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pil in mac high sierra
Saurabh Ariyan over 4 years

won't sudo pip affect the global pil rather than the virtual environment pil?
Torrien over 2 years

@SindreMyren Thanks for this. I had to do the pip uninstall and install to get it to work.
Ruli about 2 years

what does "darwin Big Sur pyenv" mean?
Ryu Kent almost 2 years

@Ruli it means he's using MacOS (darwin), the version is Big Sur and his python setup is via pyenv.