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Getting Started

It doesn't take much to get stata_kernel up and running. Here's how:

Prerequisites

  • Stata. A currently-licensed version of Stata must already be installed. stata_kernel has been reported to work with at least Stata 13+, and may work with Stata 12.

  • Python. In order to install the kernel, Python 3.5, 3.6, or 3.7 needs to be installed on the computer on which Stata is running.

    I suggest installing the Anaconda distribution. This doesn't require administrator privileges, and is the simplest way to install Python and many of the most popular scientific packages.

    The full Anaconda installation is quite large, and includes many libraries for Python that stata_kernel doesn't use. If you don't plan to use Python and want to use less disk space, install Miniconda, a bare-bones version of Anaconda. Then when installing the package any other necessary dependencies will be downloaded automatically.

Windows-specific steps

In order to let stata_kernel talk to Stata, you need to link the Stata Automation library:

  1. In the installation directory (most likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata15 or similar), right-click on the Stata executable, for example, StataSE.exe. Choose Create Shortcut. Placing it on the Desktop is fine.
  2. Right-click on the newly created Shortcut to StataSE.exe, choose Property, and append /Register to the end of the Target field. So if the target is currently "C:\Program Files\Stata15\StataSE.exe", change it to "C:\Program Files\Stata15\StataSE.exe" /Register. Click OK.
  3. Right-click on the updated Shortcut to StataSE.exe; choose Run as administrator.

Package Install

If you use Anaconda or Miniconda, from the Anaconda Prompt run:

conda install -c conda-forge stata_kernel
python -m stata_kernel.install

If you do not use Anaconda/Miniconda, from a terminal or command prompt run:

pip install stata_kernel
python -m stata_kernel.install

If Python 2 is the default version of Python on your system, you may need to use python3 instead of python for the python3 -m stata_kernel.install step.

Jupyter

If you chose to install Anaconda you already have Jupyter Notebook and Jupyter Lab installed.

Otherwise, you need to install Jupyter Notebook or Jupyter Lab. I recommend the latter as it is a similar but more modern environment. If you have Miniconda, open the Anaconda Prompt and run:

conda install jupyterlab

If you use pip, you can install it via:

pip install jupyterlab

If you would not like to install Jupyter Lab and only need the Notebook, you can install it by running

conda install notebook

or

pip install notebook

depending on your package manager.

In order to get syntax highlighting in Jupyter Lab, run: 

conda install -c conda-forge nodejs -y
jupyter labextension install jupyterlab-stata-highlight

If you didn't install Python from Anaconda/Miniconda, the conda command won't work and you'll need to install Node.js directly before running jupyter labextension install.

Upgrading

To upgrade from a previous version of stata_kernel, from a terminal or command prompt run

conda update stata_kernel -y
in the case of Anaconda/Miniconda or

pip install stata_kernel --upgrade
otherwise.

When upgrading, you don't have to run python -m stata_kernel.install again.

Using

Next, read more about Jupyter and its different interfaces or about how to use the Stata kernel, specifically.