How to Install Matplotlib on PyCharm?

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Matplotlib is the most important Python library for data visualization and plotting. Every data scientist, machine learning engineer, and financial analyst working with Python needs it!

Problem Formulation: Given a PyCharm project. How to install the Matplotlib library in your project within a virtual environment or globally?

Here’s a solution that always works:

  • Open File > Settings > Project from the PyCharm menu.
  • Select your current project.
  • Click the Python Interpreter tab within your project tab.
  • Click the small + symbol to add a new library to the project.
  • Now type in the library to be installed, in your example "matplotlib" without quotes, and click Install Package.
  • Wait for the installation to terminate and close all popup windows.

Here’s the installation process as a short animated video—it works analogously for Matplotlib, just type in “matplotlib” in the search field instead:

Make sure to select only “matplotlib” because there are many other packages that are not required but also contain the term “matplotlib” (False positives):

install matplotlib pycharm

Alternatively, you can run the pip install matplotlib command in your PyCharm “Terminal” view:

$ pip install matplotlib
pip install matplotlib on PyCharm

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