Downloading and installing

PCT is currently available for Mac, PC, and Linux machines. It can be downloaded from PCT releases page using the following steps. Note that there are several dependencies that are pre-requisites before PCT can function properly. For Mac and Windows machines, we have created executable files that bundle most of the dependencies and the PCT software itself into a single package. Using these is the easiest / fastest way to get PCT up and running on your machine.

Download

  1. Go to the PCT releases page.
  2. Click on the link for your operating system with the highest number (= most recent version). As of July 2016, that is 1.2.

Windows Installer

  1. NOTE: This method requires that you are running a 64-bit version of windows. You can check this in Control Panel -> System and Security -> System.
  2. Download the file called “corpustools-1.2.0-amd64.msi” (or similar, for a more recent version), by clicking or right-clicking on the link. This is an installer program.
  3. Run the downloaded installer program by double-clicking on it, wherever it has been saved locally.
  4. PCT should now be available from your “Start” menu under “Programs.”
  5. If you run into trouble, try the “Fallback” instructions in below.

Mac Executable

  1. Download the file called ‘Phonological.CorpusTools-1.2.0.dmg’ by clicking or ctrl-clicking on the link.
  2. Open the dmg file and drag the Phonological CorpusTools app into Applications.
  3. Phonological CorpusTools is now available in your Applications, and can be opened as other applications. You may have to enable applications from third-party developers in your security settings.
  4. If you run into trouble, try the “Fallback” instructions in below.

Linux / Fallback instructions

  1. Dependencies: You’ll first need to make sure all of the following are installed. The third and fourth ones (NumPy and SciPy) are needed only for the Acoustic Similarity functionality to work.
  1. Python 3.3 or higher
  2. NumPy
  3. SciPy
  4. (NB: If you are on Windows and can’t successfully use the acoustic similarity module after installing NumPy and SciPy from the above sources, you may want to try installing them from precompiled binaries.)
  1. Get the source code for PCT. Click on either the .zip or the .gz file on the PCT releases page or the GitHub repository, to download the zipped or tarball version of the code, depending on your preference.
  2. After expanding the file, you will find a file called setup.py in the top level directory. Run it in one of the following ways:
  1. Double-click it. If this doesn’t work, access the file properties and ensure that you have permission to run the file; if not, give them to yourself. In Windows, this may require that you open the file in Administrator mode (also accessible through file properties). If your computer opens the .py file in a text editor rather than running it, you can access the file properties to set Python 3.x as the default program to use with run .py files. If the file is opened in IDLE (a Python editor), you can use the “Run” button in the IDLE interface to run the script instead.
  2. Open a terminal window and run the file. In Linux or Mac OS X, there should be a Terminal application pre-installed. In Windows, you may need to install Cygwin. Once the terminal window is open, nagivate to the top level CorpusTools folder—the one that has setup.py in it. (Use the command ‘cd’ to navigate your filesystem; Google “terminal change directory” for further instructions.) Once in the correct directory, run this command: python3 setup.py install. You may lack proper permissions to run this file, in which case on Linux or Mac OS X you can instead run sudo python3 setup.py install. If Python 3.x is the only version of Python on your system, it may be possible or necessary to use the command python rather than python3.
  1. Phonological CorpusTools should now be installed! Run it from a terminal window using the command pct. You can also open a “Run” dialogue and use the command pct there. In Windows, the Run tool is usually found in All Programs -> Accessories.