https://packaging.python.org/guides/packaging-binary-extensions/#setting-up-a-build-environment-on-windows

for how to set up a build environment.

Since there is no canonical Windows package manager, the methods for building

FreeType, zlib, and libpng from source code are documented as a build script

at `matplotlib-winbuild<https://github.com/jbmohler/matplotlib-winbuild>`_.

The Windows OS has no canonical package manager to provide easy inclusion of the dependencies that are

required for the Matplotlib build. However, documentation and scripts that build the FreeType, zlib,

and libpng dependencies from source code and integrate them into the Matplotlib build can be found

at `matplotlib-winbuild<https://github.com/MaxvandenBoom/matplotlib-winbuild>`_.

There are a few possibilities to build Matplotlib on Windows:

* Wheels via `matplotlib-winbuild<https://github.com/jbmohler/matplotlib-winbuild>`_

* Wheels via `matplotlib-winbuild<https://github.com/MaxvandenBoom/matplotlib-winbuild>`_

* Wheels by using conda packages (see below)

* Conda packages (see below)

If you are building your own Matplotlib wheels (or sdists), note that any DLLs

that you copy into the source tree will be packaged too.

..note::

The current master branch (which will become matplotlib 3.3) includes its own copy of Qhull; and by default downloads and builds

its own copy of FreeType and JQuery. The only non-python dependency that you would require is Visual Studio 2015 or later.

See https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/users/installing.html#building-on-windows for the instructions on installing from master).

Wheel builds using conda packages