Dictate in your apps
Hold Right Alt by default, speak, and release to transcribe. To avoid holding a key throughout a recording, choose Press to toggle in Settings (also in Setup in the upcoming 0.1.13 build): press once to start and again to stop. The notification-area menu's Dictate action also starts and stops recording without the configured key, in either dictation style. Published 0.1.12 plays its high cue before the microphone opens, so allow time for the device to start before speaking. Upcoming 0.1.13 shows Connecting microphone… until the first input buffer arrives; its high cue then confirms input is arriving, and Listening… appears after the cue and playback-muting step when Presspeech begins accepting speech. If a press ends before that readiness point, it reports Microphone was not ready; a started input with no buffers reports a microphone error. If a ready recording captures too little audio or Whisper VAD rejects it, the indicator briefly says No speech detected — try again and a Windows notification points back to Setup's microphone check. If the recognizer instead returns blank text without VAD-zero evidence, it says No text recognized — try again; that result does not establish that the microphone captured silence. In upcoming 0.1.13, if filler removal or an empty dictionary replacement leaves nothing to insert, Nothing to insert explains the result without changing the clipboard or pasting only the configured suffix over a field. The configured key is reserved for Presspeech while it is running, so it does not also open a Windows surface or invoke an F8–F12 command in the focused app; other keys and AltGr layout input continue to pass through normally. Press Escape during recording to cancel and discard the buffered audio without transcribing or changing the clipboard. The notification-area menu offers the same Cancel Dictation (Esc) action while recording. If Windows hides that icon in overflow, launch Presspeech again from the Start Menu to restore its window or open its controls; a second dictation process is not started. If the configured key stops responding while menu-based Dictate still works, choose Repair Global Hotkey in the notification-area menu, Setup, or Settings. Presspeech replaces the listener even when its thread still appears healthy and reports whether the replacement started. Hotkeys, hold/toggle behavior, microphone, text suffix, audio cues, models, and the 1/2/5/10-minute maximum recording length are configurable. Parakeet recordings longer than 60 seconds use overlapping model inputs capped at 60 seconds; token timestamps crop each result to its owned interval rather than guessing at repeated transcript strings. A microphone selection saved during a recording applies to the next dictation; the active recording stays on the input it opened so its timing and final words remain intact. Reaching the configured limit stops and transcribes rather than discarding the recording. Saving a different model starts preparing it immediately; Settings keeps its ready/error status visible and offers a retry, while dictation stays unavailable until preparation finishes.
In the upcoming 0.1.13 build, Listener started means the global hotkey listener launched; Windows can silently remove a low-level hook without notifying the app. Key just detected briefly confirms a physical configured-key press. Test safely in Try Dictation with harmless text; if the key later stops responding while menu-based Dictate still works, choose Repair Global Hotkey even when the listener status says it started.