Create Windows Installer

First you need to create the Python environment with MSYS/Mingw64 as described in this page.

For building an installer, we use NSIS (already installed in the previous step).

• Remove non-necessary files that can cause freezing failure:

  rm -rf venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/setuptools*
  rm -rf venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pip*
  rm -rf venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/wheel*
  

• Patch CairoSVG and Weasyprint for freezing:

  mingw32-make patch_cairosvg
  mingw32-make patch_weasyprint
  

• Install JDupes (https://github.com/jbruchon/jdupes) for deduplication:

  wget -c -O "jdupes.zip" "https://github.com/jbruchon/jdupes/releases/download/v1.19.1/jdupes-1.19.1-win64.zip"
  unzip -j "jdupes.zip" "*/jdupes.exe" -d "./bin"
  rm jdupes.zip
  

• Compile translation files:

  mingw32-make mo
  

• Load allowances to be embeded in the installer:

  mkdir allowances
  cd allowances
  tar -xvf <your_allowances.tar.xz>
  cd ..
  

• Build the installer:

  mingw32-make win64
  

• The generated .exe is located in ./bin folder.