How do you install PyCairo (Cairo for Python) on Windows?

Question

I spent hours this afternoon trying to find a straightforward tutorial for installing PyCairo on Windows.

The Cairo project itself does not maintain Windows binaries, they must be dowloaded elsehere (e.g. http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/pycairo/).

The process is also complicated further apparently by the fact that MSVC is apparently not a supported compiler for PyCairo (although the source patch is simple). See this bug report:

https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22940

Can anyone recommend a tutorial for installing PyCairo on Windows?

Answer 1

You should try windows binary installers from Gohlke repository for pyCairo and py2Cairo.

I never used pyCairo myself but took 4 minutes to install and get my first png example file done.

Answer 2

Adding the following for completeness - joaquin's answer above provides a simpler route (and Python 3 support).

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Please see the following tutorial:

http://www.cs.rhul.ac.uk/home/tamas/development/igraph/tutorial/install.html

(also hosted at http://hal.elte.hu/~nepusz/development/igraph/tutorial/install.html).

I asked the question above, so that I could answer it myself. Hopefully people in a similar situation in future will find this post :)

While Googling "pycairo install windows" does give the above link, it is presented below some rather unhelpful pages, and it's also not particularly obvious that igraph documentation will be applicable.

Eventually I got as far as installing PyCairo (from the GNOME link in the question), without Cairo itself. This gave me a DLL import error when I tried to use it. Fortunately, a question relating to this error exists on StackOverflow:

pycairo "ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found." even after DLLs installed

This question discusses the excellent tutorial from Tamas, linked above, which is all I needed to get up and running.

Answer 3

I believe I have installed a copy using the pygtk all-in-one installer and I believe it did Just Work (32b, python2, mind you). They also mention the gnome URL in your post.

Answer 4

install pygtk all in one http://www.pygtk.org/downloads.html It includes pygtk and all its dependencies, including pycairo

Answer 5

A simple tutorial: http://digitalpbk.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/installing-pygtk-pypango-and-pycairo-on.html

only 4 steps and worked like a charm.

Answer 6

There is another similar question in StackOverflow: PyCairo - installation on Windows

The accepted answer is simple and practical.

Although the link it provided is outdated (because the version is up now), the idea is great.

I improve that answer to make it more general:

1. Go to Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages - Pycairo

2. Download the pycairo‑***.whl file (choose a proper version for your environment).

3. Go to the folder where you download the .whl file and type pip install pycairo-***.whl. Wait a few seconds and everything would be done.

I have tested this method and it works perfectly.

Answer 7

Now Pycairo has wheels see https://github.com/pygobject/pycairo/pull/191.

Windows can just do

pip install pycairo

and they will have pycairo installed.