About the PIL Error -- IOError: decoder zip not available

python python-imaging-library
DevX picture DevX · Aug 23, 2010 · Viewed 58k times · Source

I am getting the:

IOError: decoder zip not available

when I try to draw an image and save to a jpeg in PIL. Any thoughts on how to resolve this? PIL has worked fine for me in the past, when it comes to viewing/uploading images.

Answer

Cory picture Cory · Sep 10, 2012 
sudo pip uninstall PIL
sudo pip install pillow

^^ fixed it for me.

Pillow is a fork of PIL that is compatible with pip/setuptools and gets a little better maintenance. I haven't seen any API differences yet.

Edit: There is one notable API difference. PIL exposes Image as a top-level namespace, so you can

import Image # in PIL only

but

from PIL import Image  # in pillow or PIL
  • Thanks, Leopd!

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