Appendix A3: Using PyCharm Community

This appendix assumes you’ve completed Part 0 — Python installed, .venv created and active, packages installed. Everything below is specific to working in PyCharm Community (the free edition — this book needs nothing from the paid Professional edition).

Install PyCharm Community

Download it from jetbrains.com/pycharm/download — select the Community edition, which is free, and run the installer.

Open the project

From PyCharm’s welcome screen, choose Open and select the ddr-rag-book folder you created in Part 0. PyCharm treats this folder as one project.

Select the existing .venv

PyCharm may offer to create its own virtual environment — decline that and point it at the .venv you already created in Part 0 instead, so you don’t end up with two separate toolboxes:

  1. Go to PyCharm → Settings (Mac) or File → Settings (Windows/Linux).
  2. Navigate to Project: ddr-rag-book → Python Interpreter.
  3. Click the gear icon → Add → Existing environment.
  4. Browse to .venv/bin/python (Mac/Linux) or .venv\Scripts\python.exe (Windows) inside your project folder, and select it.

Open a terminal

PyCharm has a built-in terminal along the bottom of the window — click the Terminal tab. It opens already positioned inside your project folder, and should show (.venv) in the prompt once the interpreter above is set correctly.

Run a script

Two options, same result:

  • Type the command into PyCharm’s terminal tab:

    python code/chapter_01/read_ddr.py datasets/sample_ddrs/FORGE-16A-78-32_Drilling_038_2020-11-26.pdf

  • Or open the .py file in the editor and click the green Run (▶) arrow next to the file, or right-click inside the file and choose Run.

Run a Python file directly

Right-clicking any .py file in PyCharm’s project sidebar and choosing Run ‘’ does the same thing as typing python <path/to/file.py> in the terminal — pick whichever is more comfortable as you go through the book.