Installing software on your personal computer

Franklin Bristow

Install software on your personal computer (e.g., pandoc and VS Code).

Before we can really do anything in this course, you’re going to need to install some software on your computer. Your computer already has lots of software installed on it and you maybe installed some of that software yourself.

We’re going to install two pieces of software that you’re going to be using throughout the course: Visual Studio Code (henceforth “VS Code”) and Pandoc.

Installing software is generally straightforward. The first thing you’re going to need to do is download the software from it’s source.

VS Code

Downloading VS Code

Open your web browser (e.g., Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox) and navigate to https://code.visualstudio.com/.

The VS Code website is usually smart enough to figure out which operating system you’re running and lets you pick the right type of file to download on the main page.

If you don’t see the right option on the main page, you can also go to the download page. On the Download page you’ll see many options and it’s up to you to figure out which file you should download (but you can almost certainly safely click on the big buttons for “Windows”, “Mac”, or choose .deb/.rpm if you’re running Linux).

Installing VS Code

How you install VS Code depends on the operating system you’re using.

Installing VS Code on Windows

Find the file that you downloaded (a .exe file) and double-click on it. Follow the prompts.

Installing VS Code on macOS

Find the file that you downloaded (a .zip file) and double-click on it. Copy and paste the folder into your “Applications” directory to install it.

Installing VS Code on Linux

Find the file that you downloaded (a .deb or .rpm file) and double-click on it. Your software manager should then prompt you to install the package, follow the prompts.

Verifying that VS Code is installed

Once you’ve gone through the install process, you should check that VS Code is actually installed on your computer by running VS Code.

Running VS Code on Windows

VS Code may have added an icon to your desktop, depending on whether or not you allowed it to when it was installing. If you can find an icon on your desktop for VS Code, double-click on it.

If you can’t find an icon on your desktop for VS Code, you will be able to find it in the Start menu. Either click on the Microsoft logo in the corner of your screen, or press the Microsoft key (the “super” key) on your keyboard, then start typing “VS Code”. When you see VS Code appear, click on it.

Running VS Code on macOS

Find the VS Code folder in your Applications folder and double-click on it.

Optionally drag the VS Code icon from your Applications folder to your dock so that opening VS Code later is easier.

Running VS Code on Linux

VS Code may have added an icon to your desktop. If you can find an icon on your desktop for VS Code, double-click on it.

If you can’t find an icon for VS Code on your desktop, you will be able it find it in your application launcher menu. Either click on the application launcher menu in the corner of your screen, or press the Microsoft key (the “super” key) on your keyboard, then start typing “VS Code”. When you see VS Code appear, click on it.

Pandoc

Downloading Pandoc

Open your web browser and navigate to https://pandoc.org. Click on the “Installing” link at the top of the page.

The Pandoc website is sometimes smart enough to figure out which operating system you’re running and links you directly to the right type of file to download on this page. You can still also go directly to the latest release page on GitHub.

The latest releases page has a lot of choices, I recommend that you pick:

The .msi file if you’re on Windows.
The .pkg file if you’re on macOS.
The -amd64.deb file if you’re using a Debian-based Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Pop!_OS. If you’re using something else and need help, ask for help now.

Installing Pandoc

How you install Pandoc depends on the operating system you’re using.

Installing Pandoc on Windows

Find the file that you downloaded (a .msi file) and double-click on it. Follow the prompts.

Installing Pandoc on macOS

Find the file that you downloaded (a .pkg file) and double-click on it. Follow the prompts.

Installing Pandoc on Linux

Find the file that you downloaded (a .deb) and double-click on it and your software manager will prompt you to install it.

Depending on your experience with Linux-based operating systems, you might be asking “Why aren’t you using a package manager for this?”. The answer to that question is “Hold your horses :race_horse:! We’re going to use package managers in COMP 1006.” If you feel comfortable using your package manager right now, feel free to install pandoc using your package manager instead of using the .deb package.

If you don’t know what a “package manager” is: don’t worry! We’ll get there!

Verifying that Pandoc is installed

Unlike VS Code, Pandoc is not a program that has a graphical user interface (GUI), so no icon will be made for running the program after it’s been installed.

Instead, Pandoc is a program that runs in your terminal. To check if Pandoc has been installed, you’re going to need to open your terminal program.

Opening your terminal on Windows

You have a few different options for terminals on Windows. The one that’s built in is called the “Command Prompt”. You can alternatively install another one from the Microsoft Store called “Windows Terminal”. I recommend that you install this (it’s much better than the Command Prompt), but it’s not required.

Your terminal program does not have a desktop icon, so either click on the Microsoft logo (the “Start menu”) or press the Microsoft key (the “super” key) on your keyboard, then start typing “cmd” or “term”. When you see Command Prompt or Terminal appear, click on it.

Opening your terminal on macOS

macOS has a built-in terminal called “Terminal.app”. Apple has good documentation about how to open Terminal, but the short version is that you should open your Applications folder, then find the Utilities folder and open that, then double-click on “Terminal” (not “Console”!).

You can optionally drag the Terminal icon to your dock so that it’s easier to launch later (you’re going to have to do this every class!).

Opening your terminal on Linux

Your terminal program does not have a desktop icon, so either click on the application launcher menu in the corner of your screen, or press the Microsoft key (the “super” key) on your keyboard, then start typing “terminal”. When you see a terminal application appear, click on it.

Running Pandoc

Now that you’ve got your terminal open, you should be able to run Pandoc. At this point, it doesn’t matter what operating system you’re using, running Pandoc is the same for all.

In your terminal, type in pandoc and press Enter. As soon as you press Enter, Pandoc won’t show any output, but is patiently waiting for you to type something in.

If you see anything printed to the screen (like an error message), stop here and ask for help.

Pandoc is patiently waiting for you to type something in, so… type something in! Let’s do the classical “Hello, world”. After you type in “Hello, world”, press Enter on your keyboard, then press (on macOS and Linux) Ctrl+D or (on Windows) press Ctrl+Z then Enter.

Pandoc should then take your input and turn it into HTML:

<p>Hello, world</p>

If you see that, then success 🎉! Pandoc is installed.