Push-to-Talk Voice-to-Text

A Windows push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech and pastes it into any application. Double-tap Insert (or Right Ctrl) to start recording, tap again to stop and paste. Uses a local Whisper model — no API keys, no cloud, fully offline.

Download

Download PTT-1.1.0-win64.msi

Run the installer and launch "Push-to-Talk" from the Start Menu. The first launch downloads the Whisper model (~150 MB).

Features

• Double-tap to talk — Double-tap Insert or Right Ctrl to record, tap once more to transcribe and paste
• Live transcription — See your words appear in a floating overlay as you speak
• Cancel with ESC — Press Escape while recording to discard
• Works everywhere — Pastes into whatever app has focus (Notepad, browser, Slack, etc.)
• Fully offline — Runs a local Whisper model, no internet needed after first setup
• Lightweight — Sits quietly in the system tray until you need it
• Single instance — Launching again cleanly replaces the running copy

Usage

Action	Key	Result
Start recording	Double-tap Insert or Right Ctrl	Overlay appears, mic starts capturing
Finish & paste	Tap Insert or Right Ctrl	Text is transcribed and pasted
Cancel	Press ESC while recording	Recording discarded, nothing pasted
Quit	Right-click tray icon → Quit	App exits

Building from Source

Requires Python 3.12 or 3.14 on Windows (Python 3.13 is not supported due to a missing ctranslate2 wheel).

# Create virtual environment
py -3.14 -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Generate the tray icon
python generate_icon.py

# Run
python run.py

Configuration

Edit ptt/config.py to customise:

Setting	Default	Description
WHISPER_MODEL_SIZE	"base"	Model size: tiny, base, small, medium, large-v3
WHISPER_DEVICE	"cpu"	"cpu" or "cuda" for GPU acceleration
WHISPER_LANGUAGE	"en"	Language code, or None for auto-detect
OVERLAY_POSITION	"bottom_right"	"bottom_right", "top_right", or "center"
STREAM_INTERVAL_MS	2000	How often live transcription updates (ms)
DOUBLE_TAP_WINDOW_S	0.4	Max seconds between taps to trigger recording

Building the MSI Installer

python setup_cx.py bdist_msi

Output: dist/PTT-1.1.0-win64.msi

License

All rights reserved.