How to Install and Fix WordCloud in Python for Chinese Text Visualization

This article explains how to set up and use the WordCloud library in Python for Chinese text visualization, including installation, error handling, font configuration, and example code.

1. Install WordCloud

Before using WordCloud you need to install the package and its dependencies.

pip install WordCloud

pip install jieba

WordCloud generates word clouds, while jieba provides Chinese word segmentation.

If you encounter the error “error: Microsoft Visual C++ 9.0 is required…”, install the Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7 (VCForPython27). A download link is provided.

2. Simple word‑cloud code

Example code (adapted from the referenced blog) creates a word cloud from Chinese text.

from wordcloud import WordCloud
import jieba

text = "your Chinese text here"
words = jieba.cut(text)
word = " ".join(words)
wc = WordCloud(font_path='msyh.ttf', width=800, height=400).generate(word)
wc.to_file('wordcloud.png')

The resulting image displays the most frequent keywords.

3. Fixing Chinese encoding errors

Open the installed wordcloud.py file and change the FONT_PATH from DroidSansMono.ttf to msyh.ttf (Microsoft YaHei). Place the msyh.ttf file in the same directory.

4. Word cloud with image mask

Using an image mask (e.g., sss3.png) you can shape the word cloud.

from wordcloud import WordCloud
import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

mask = np.array(Image.open('sss3.png'))
wc = WordCloud(mask=mask, font_path='msyh.ttf').generate(word)
wc.to_file('masked_wordcloud.png')

Sample results are shown below.