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Install Python (the easy way, with Anaconda)

Module 02 · Setting Up Your Environment10 min readBeginner

What you'll learn

  • Download and install Anaconda for your operating system
  • Verify Python is installed correctly
  • Know where Python lives on your computer

Why Anaconda?

You can install Python directly from python.org. For an Excel user with no programming background, that path leads to lots of head-scratching. Anaconda is a free bundled installer made by a data-science company. Click one button, wait ten minutes, and you have:

If you've already installed Python a different way and it's working, you can skip this lesson. Otherwise, use Anaconda.

Step-by-step walkthrough

Go to the Anaconda download page

Open https://www.anaconda.com/download in your browser.

You may be asked for an email. You can skip that and click "Download" directly.

Pick your operating system

The page detects your OS automatically. Confirm it's right (Windows, macOS, or Linux) and choose the 64-bit installer. If you have a recent Mac with an M-series chip, pick the Apple Silicon version.

Run the installer

Double-click the downloaded file. Click "Continue" / "Next" through every screen. The defaults are correct for what you need.

On Windows, when asked, leave "Add Anaconda to my PATH environment variable" unchecked (Anaconda's own recommendation). We'll use the Anaconda Prompt for command-line work.

The install takes 5–10 minutes and uses about 3 GB of disk space.

Open the Anaconda Navigator

On Mac: open Launchpad and find Anaconda-Navigator.
On Windows: hit the Start menu and search for Anaconda Navigator.

The Navigator is a friendly home screen for everything Anaconda installed. Take a look around. The "Home" tab shows tiles for tools you can launch — Jupyter Notebook, JupyterLab, Spyder, etc.

Confirm Python is working

Click the green Launch button under Jupyter Notebook. Your browser will open with a file-browser view. Click New → Python 3 (ipykernel) to make a new notebook.

In the first cell, type:

print("Python is alive!")

Hold Shift and press Enter. You should see Python is alive! printed below the cell. 🎉

Confirm pandas works

Make a new cell (click the + button) and run:

import pandas as pd
print(pd.__version__)

You should see a version number like 2.2.2. That means pandas is installed and importable. You're done.

⚠️ If Jupyter doesn't open
On Mac, you may need to allow Terminal access. On Windows, your antivirus might flag the launch — allow it. If nothing happens at all, open Anaconda Navigator again and try clicking Launch a second time.

Key takeaways

  • Anaconda is the easiest one-click install of Python plus all the data libraries.
  • Anaconda Navigator is your graphical home base.
  • You've now run your first piece of Python.

Sanity-check exercise

In a new notebook cell, run:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
print("All three are installed!")

If you see "All three are installed!" with no red error, you're ready for the rest of the course.

📹 Video walkthrough
A video walkthrough of this lesson will be embedded here. Until then, the written walkthrough above mirrors what the video will cover step-for-step.