Using Pyinstaller with NLTK results in error: can't find nltk_data

Question

I am attempting to export a simple GUI that used NLTK as an exe with Python 3.6 and Windows 10.

When I run PyInstaller to freeze my simple program as an exe I get th

Answer 1

It seems that it is a known bug for the hook of PyInstaller for nltk. An easy way to fix it is to edit this file:

<PythonPath>/Lib/site-packages/PyInstaller/hooks/hook-nltk.py

And comment the lines iterate over nltk_data:

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) 2005-2018, PyInstaller Development Team.
#
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License with exception
# for distributing bootloader.
#
# The full license is in the file COPYING.txt, distributed with this software.
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


# hook for nltk
import nltk
from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import collect_data_files

# add datas for nltk
datas = collect_data_files('nltk', False)

# loop through the data directories and add them
# for p in nltk.data.path:
#     datas.append((p, "nltk_data"))

datas.append(("<path_to_nltk_data>", "nltk_data"))

# nltk.chunk.named_entity should be included
hiddenimports = ["nltk.chunk.named_entity"]

Remember to replace path_to_nltk_data with your currrent path for nltk_data.