Python: The _imagingft C module is not installed

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:Python26Libsite-packagesPILImageFont.py", line 34, in __getattr__
  raise ImportError("The _imagingft C module is not installed")

Answer

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/