How to Install the Geocoder¶

Download¶

First, you will need to download and install the geocoder. The Address Batch Geocoder can be downloaded here:

Download the latest release from GitHub See the latest release notes

Save to a Folder¶

Extract the zip folder into a folder where you can easily find it. When opening the zipped file, you may be prompted to either extract or run. Hit extract, not run, as the script will need to exist in an uncompressed directory in order to create the subfolders needed to work.

The zip folder contains two files: geocoder.exe and release.txt. If you delete or rename these files, you will need to download them again or rename them back. Deleting release.txt will stop the program from being able to inform you if there is a new version of the .exe file that you need to download.

Running the program for the first time¶

Double-clicking geocoder.exe will launch the program. You may see a popup that says "Windows protected your PC." This file is safe, so bypass this protection by clicking More info, and then selecting Run anyway.

As a first-time installation, the script will download Python and Git if not present, then download the geocoder from GitHub and install the proper dependencies. The geocoder will be downloaded to a folder called address-geocoder-main. If there are problems with your install, you may try deleting this folder and running geocoder.exe again.

The script will then attempt to download the address file. The address file is the list of Philadelphia addresses that the tool makes the first-pass at matching against. This may take a few minutes. It will save the address file and a version file in a subfolder called geocoder_address_data. Under most circumstances, you should not remove this folder or any of the files in it. Doing so will cause the script to redownload the address file.