As stated earlier, Anaconda users always have pip available in every new environment, as well as the root folder—it comes pre-installed with every version of Anaconda, including Miniconda. As pip is a Python package manager used to install and manage software packages written in Python, it runs in the command line, as opposed to Anaconda Navigator and Cloud. If you decide not to use Anaconda or anything similar to it, and use a default Python installation from python.org, you can either use easy_install or pip as a package manager. As pip is seen as an improvement over easy_install and the preferred Python package manager for Python 3, we will only discuss pip here. It is recommended to use either pip, conda, Anaconda Navigator, or Cloud for Python package management in the upcoming chapters.

Optionally, as you install Anaconda, three environment variables will be added to your list of user variables. This enables you to access commands such as pip from any system location if you open a terminal. To check if pip is installed on your system, open a terminal and enter:

>> pip

If you don't receive any error message, it means pip is installed correctly and you can use pip to install any package of your choice from the PyPI by using:

>> pip install <package-name>

For Anaconda users, the pip command file should be stored at the following path:

C:Users<User Name>Anaconda3Scriptspip.exe.

If pip is not available on your system, you can install pip by following the instructions given at: https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.