how to install PIL with truetype support

Question

Hi!

How can I install PIL (Python Imaging Library) with truetype (libfreetype) support on my webfaction hosting account? Thank you.

Accepted Answer

You can build PIL with support for JPEG, Freetype, etc, on our CentOS6 servers without building those libraries locally in your home directory, and without setting environment variables like LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Here are the steps:

First, download and extract the PIL tarball:

mkdir -p ~/src ~/lib/python2.7
cd ~/src
wget http://effbot.org/media/downloads/PIL-1.1.7.tar.gz
tar zxf PIL-1.1.7.tar.gz
cd PIL-1.1.7

Next, edit PIL's setup.py to set the library pointers as follows:

# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# Library pointers.
#
# Use None to look for the libraries in well-known library locations.
# Use a string to specify a single directory, for both the library and
# the include files.  Use a tuple to specify separate directories:
# (libpath, includepath).  Examples:
#
# JPEG_ROOT = "/home/libraries/jpeg-6b"
# TIFF_ROOT = "/opt/tiff/lib", "/opt/tiff/include"
#
# If you have "lib" and "include" directories under a common parent,
# you can use the "libinclude" helper:
#
# TIFF_ROOT = libinclude("/opt/tiff")

TCL_ROOT = None
JPEG_ROOT = '/usr/lib64','/usr/include'
ZLIB_ROOT = '/lib64','/usr/include'
TIFF_ROOT = None
FREETYPE_ROOT = '/usr/lib64','/usr/include/freetype2/freetype'
LCMS_ROOT = None

Next, build PIL with the following command:

python2.7 setup.py build_ext -i

Next, run the test to confirm that the build was successful:

$ python2.7 selftest.py
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PIL 1.1.7 TEST SUMMARY 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Python modules loaded from ./PIL
Binary modules loaded from ./PIL
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--- PIL CORE support ok
--- TKINTER support ok
--- JPEG support ok
--- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support ok
--- FREETYPE2 support ok
--- LITTLECMS support ok
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, install the library:

python2.7 setup.py install

You're done!

Answer 2

Currently if you import PIL using python2.7 on your account it is pulling in the shared version and not the installed one,

>>> import PIL
>>> print PIL
<module 'PIL' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/__init__.py'>

This would account for why it is failing. I have ran

python2.7 setup.py install

On your account and now it imports correctly,

>>> import PIL
>>> print PIL
<module 'PIL' from '/home/username/lib/python2.7/PIL/__init__.pyc'>

However it now fails with,

>>> import _imaging
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To solve this I did 2 things, 1 created a symbolic link to the real file,

[box@web315 lib]$ ln -s libjpeg.so.8.4.0 libjpeg.so.8

Than ran this line to load the lib path,

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/lib

Selftest.py now runs but fails for missing files.

Answer 3

1

Installing PIL on a virtualenv (worked for me)

1 - pip install --no-install PIL (working on my virtualenv enviroment)

2 - edit the setup (inside the build directory of the virtual environment) in my case:

JPEG_ROOT = '/usr/lib64','/usr/include'

3 - pip install PIL

permanent link

answered 16 Oct '12, 14:04

aemb87
11●2
accept rate: 0%

Answer 4

0

PIL is already installed on WebFaction server with TrueType support. You can test like this:

import Image, ImageFont, ImageDraw  
text = "TEST"  
image = Image.open("background.jpg")  
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(image)  
font = ImageFont.truetype("/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/georgia.ttf", 50, encoding='unic')  
draw.text((5, 5), text, font=font, fill="#aa0000")  
image.save("image.jpg")

permanent link

answered 04 Feb '12, 16:34

timg ♦♦
1.3k●4
accept rate: 30%

1

No luck:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "a.py", line 5, in <module>
    font = ImageFont.truetype("/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/georgia.ttf", 50, encoding='unic')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 218, in truetype
    return FreeTypeFont(filename, size, index, encoding)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 134, in __init__
    self.font = core.getfont(file, size, index, encoding)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 34, in __getattr__
    raise ImportError("The _imagingft C module is not installed")
ImportError: The _imagingft C module is not installed.

Any idea?

(04 Feb '12, 16:39) Andy

Hi Andy,

Can you try this using the system Python2.7 now?

(21 Mar '12, 22:48) klynton

Answer 5

0

A good set of build instructions can be found on stackoverflow,

For step 2 you should build freetype from source which is available here.

For step 3 you would use the path you defined in './configure --prefix='

permanent link

answered 04 Feb '12, 17:11

johns ♦♦
5.1k●2●11
accept rate: 22%

let me explain what i'm doing:

downloaded freetype, libjpeg, libtiff, zlib.
unpack them all.
./configure --prefix=$HOME && make && make install (for everyone).

change setup.py of PIL (ROOT_*), also i added

add_directory(library_dirs, "/$HOME/lib")
add_directory(include_dirs, "/$HOME/include")

to 214 line.

I run python2.7 setup.py build_ext -i,

then python2.7 selftest.py and I get error:

*** The _imaging C module is not installed

what am i doing wrong? (noob in linux)

(04 Feb '12, 18:43) Andy

Instead of using /$HOME/lib and /$HOME/include, can you try using the real paths, or else using os.environ['HOME']? Since setup.py is a python script and not bash, it won't necessarily expand these paths unless somehow it's re-set in a shell context. If this doesn't work, let us know and we'll be happy to investigate further.

(04 Feb '12, 18:59) ryans ♦♦

i did it too (/home/my_name/lib, home/my_name/include) but it still the same problem

(05 Feb '12, 02:27) Andy

I'm having the same issue running on a RedHat installation on ASO shared hosting, running Python 2.7 with PIL 1.1.7. Here's what I get...


>>> from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFilter, ImageFont
>>> im = Image.new('RGB', (300,300), 'white')
>>> draw = ImageDraw.Draw(im)
>>> font = ImageFont.truetype('arial.ttf', 14)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 218, in truetype
    return FreeTypeFont(filename, size, index, encoding)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 134, in __init__
    self.font = core.getfont(file, size, index, encoding)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL/ImageFont.py", line 34, in __getattr__
    raise ImportError("The _imagingft C module is not installed")
ImportError: The _imagingft C module is not installed
>>>

(29 Aug '12, 16:19) salsama

I don't know if our instructions will work at ASO, but you're welcome to try them :)

(29 Aug '12, 16:54) seanf

how to install PIL with truetype support

Installing PIL on a virtualenv (worked for me)

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