Setting up Python on Windows with Anaconda

05 Mar 2019 🔖 python tutorials windows salesforce beginner
💬 EN

I keep warning students not to use real, corporate CSV files in Python with online “IDEs” like Repl.it or CodeBunk, and to install Python on your local machine instead.

Finally, I’ve written a tutorial to walk you through it!

These screenshots document the simplest approach I know of for installing Python on a Windows machine.

Seriously – THIS IS SO SIMPLE. You just download software, double-click the installer, let it run, open up the code editor, and execute your first print('Hello World') like magic.

But I’m here to walk you through every step and explain what’s going on in the background.

If things don’t work and you can handle something a bit more complicated, see my instructions on setting up “miniconda” on Windows.

(Alternatively, I wrote a tutorial on installing the Windows Store version of Python.)

Installing Anaconda & running a Python program

Download

First, download an appropriate installer file for “Anaconda”.

It’s not very smart about detecting that you’re on Windows, so explicitly click the “Windows” option just above the downloads.

If what I just said didn’t make any sense, do 64-bit.

You want one for “Python 3.something,” not “Python 2.something.”

Run the Anaconda installer

Double-click the “.exe” file to run setup. Click “Next,” then click “I Agree” on the following screen.

Choose “just me” or “all users”

I’m going to install this for “just me,” because I don’t have admin rights to install software on my corporate PC.

My choice here influences whether the installer suggests installing the program under:

• C:\Users\MY_USERNAME\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3 (just me), or
• C:\Program Files\Anaconda3 (all users)

Installation folder

It bothers me to forget when software is installed in my \AppData\Local\ hidden folders, so I am going to manually change the installation path on the next screen to C:\Users\MY_USERNAME\Documents\ProgFiles\Continuum\anaconda3.

(Yes, in the screenshot, which I reused from an earlier tutorial, I called that folder “ProgramFilesForSoftwareHatingSpaces” instead of “ProgFiles” – I was feeling a bit pouty when Anaconda complained about my “Program Files” folder I’d set up under “My Documents.”)

Options

Next, the installer is going to ask me whether I want to do either of two things.

1. Add “Anaconda” to my “PATH” environment variable. It says not to do it right in the installer text, so I’m going to leave it un-checked.
2. Register “Anaconda” as my “default Python 3.7” environment. This comes checked, and they recommend it, and hey … let’s do it. I did.

Now I’ll click “Install.”

While it runs

The installer takes a few minutes while it dumps thousands of small files onto your hard drive.

Finishing

When it says “Completed”, click “Next.”

Don’t bother to install VSCode – it’s an “IDE” (code editor), but you’re already getting another one called “Spyder” with this installation, and that will do you just fine. Click “Skip.”

Leave the “learn more” boxes checked, or un-check them, as you prefer, and click “Finish.”

(The second checkbox brings you here; the first just brings you to Anaconda’s website.)

Write your first Python program

If you’ve practiced coding in an online “IDE” like Repl.it or CodeBunk, you know that coding can be as easy as clicking a big “run” button every time you type enough text that you wonder what it does.

You have the same thing on your hard drive now! It’s called Spyder.

Anaconda’s installer installed it for you.

If you look at your “Start” menu (the thing that pops up when you click the Windows icon in the bottom left corner of your screen), you may also notice a new folder called “Anaconda3 (64-bit)” with several icons beneath it.

Click the one that says “Spyder.”

The splash screen while it starts up looks like this:

And in your taskbar, once it’s up and running, its icon looks like this:

When it’s fully open, it’ll typically look something like this:

• On the left will be a place for you to edit code, with a new file called “untitled.py” (tentatively proposing you save it in C:\users\YOUR_USERNAME\untitled0.py) whose contents are:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Created on SOME_TIMESTAMP

@author: YOUR_USERNAME
"""

On the right, or at the bottom right, will be some sort of “console” where you can watch code execute every time you hit the big green “run” button near the top of the screen (it’s a right-facing green triangle).

In the top menu, click “File” -> “Save As.”

Pick a nice folder for your program (personally, I’m going to save mine under C:\example\, but you might want to put it on your desktop) and save it there with a filename of “hello.py”.

(Spyder’s “run” button complains if you try to run code before giving it a proper spot on your hard drive. You could just do file->save, but I personally can’t stand cluttering my c:\users\MY_USERNAME\ with files like “untitled0.”)

(Note that in the photo, mine is called “hello2.py” because I reused a screenshot from a different tutorial with 2 steps!)

Now erase the entire contents of the file, and on line 1, type:

print('Hello world')

Then click the big green “run” button.

Your output should look something like this – somewhere at the right-hand side of the screen, probably in a console called “Console 1/A,” you’ll see confirmation of the filepath of “hello.py,” followed by a new line with the text “Hello World”.

(Note that in the photo, mine says “Hello again” because I reused a screenshot from a different tutorial with 2 steps!)

In the top menu, click “File” -> “Save” because why not be proud of this working code? It’s good to get used to saving your work as soon as you like it.

But before we write a bigger program, let’s take a little diversion to learn about “modules.” They’re pretty important in Python.

Modules

Checking whether “modules” are installed

Now you need to learn what it looks like when a given extension to the Python language, also known as a “library” or “package” or, particularly in Python, a “module,” is installed.

Backspace out the entirety of your code and on line 1, type:

import pandas

Yay, it exists!

Click the “run” button.

Boo, it doesn’t exist!

Let’s try “importing” a module you probably don’t have, because it doesn’t come with Anaconda.

Backspace out the entirety of your code and on line 1, type:

import simple_salesforce

Click the “run” button.

    exec(compile(f.read(), filename, 'exec'), namespace)

  File "C:/example/hello.py", line 1, in <module>
    import simple_salesforce

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'simple_salesforce'

Installing a “module”

Anaconda comes with just about everything you need as a total beginner, so don’t bother installing extra “modules” on your computer just yet.

However, if you ever need any, see the “modules” section of my instructions on setting up “miniconda” on Windows – people who install “miniconda” have to install all their own “modules” by hand, so I went over it step-by-step in those instructions!

Write your second Python program

Backspace out the entirety of your code.

Copy and paste the following code into your code editor and run it:

import pandas
pandas.set_option('expand_frame_repr', False)
filepath = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pypancsv/pypancsv/master/docs/_data/sample1.csv'
df = pandas.read_csv(filepath)
print(df)

You should see the following output in your console at right:

      Id    First      Last           Email                      Company
0   5829    Jimmy    Buffet  [email protected]                          RCA
1   2894  Shirley  Chisholm  [email protected]       United States Congress
2    294  Marilyn    Monroe  [email protected]                          Fox
3  30829    Cesar    Chavez  [email protected]          United Farm Workers
4    827  Vandana     Shiva  [email protected]                     Navdanya
5   9284   Andrea     Smith  [email protected]     University of California
6    724   Albert    Howard  [email protected]  Imperial College of Science

Now you’ve opened a CSV spreadsheet file with Python – you’re off to the races!

Happy Programming

You now have a working environment for editing CSV files in Python!

1. You have an “IDE,” or as I like to think of it, a “text editor with a run button,” called Spyder, that runs code you type into it as you see fit.
2. You know where to look to learn to install & update “modules” that you hear might be useful.
   (Be careful and don’t trust any old module you find on the internet. It’s nothing more than “someone else’s code that you’re choosing to run on your computer.” Make sure it’s not from someone sketchy.)