Most information on how the program works is in its manual and on http://praat.org, which is also where you can download the latest binary executables from.
While the Praat website contains the latest executable for all platforms that we support (or used to support), the releases on GitHub contain many older executables as well.
The meaning of the names of binary files available on GitHub is as follows:
praatXXXX_win64.zip: zipped executable for 64-bit Windows (XP and higher)praatXXXX_win32.zip: zipped executable for 32-bit Windows (XP and higher)praatconXXXX_win64.zip: zipped executable for 64-bit Windows, console editionpraatconXXXX_win32.zip: zipped executable for 32-bit Windows, console editionpraatconXXXX_win32sit.exe: self-extracting StuffIt archive with executable for 32-bit Windows, console editionpraatXXXX_win98.zip: zipped executable for Windows 98praatXXXX_win98sit.exe: self-extracting StuffIt archive with executable for Windows 98
praatXXXX_mac64.dmg: disk image with executable for 64-bit Intel Macs (Cocoa)praatXXXX_xcodeproj64.zip: zipped Xcode project file for the 64-bit edition (Cocoa)praatXXXX_mac32.dmg: disk image with executable for 32-bit Intel Macs (Carbon)praatXXXX_xcodeproj32.zip: zipped Xcode project file for the 32-bit edition (Carbon)praatXXXX_macU.dmg: disk image with universal executable for (32-bit) PPC and Intel Macs (Carbon)praatXXXX_macU.sit: StuffIt archive with universal executable for (32-bit) PPC and Intel Macs (Carbon)praatXXXX_macU.zip: zipped universal executable for (32-bit) PPC and Intel Macs (Carbon)praatXXXX_macX.zip: zipped executable for MacOS X (PPC)praatXXXX_mac9.sit: StuffIt archive with executable for MacOS 9praatXXXX_mac9.zip: zipped executable for MacOS 9praatXXXX_mac7.sit: StuffIt archive with executable for MacOS 7
praatXXXX_rpi_armv7.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 32-bit Linux on the Raspberry Pi 4B (GTK)praatXXXX_chrome64.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 64-bit Linux on Chromebooks (GTK)praatXXXX_linux64.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 64-bit Linux (GTK)praatXXXX_linux32.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 32-bit Linux (GTK)praatXXXX_linux_motif64.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 64-bit Linux (Motif)praatXXXX_linux_motif32.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for 32-bit Linux (Motif)praatXXXX_solaris.tar.gz: gzipped tarred executable for Solaris
You need the Praat source code only in the following cases:
- you want to extend Praat’s functionality by adding C or C++ code to it; or
- you want to understand or reuse Praat’s source code; or
- you want to compile Praat for a computer for which we do not provide binary executables, e.g. Linux for some non-Intel computers, FreeBSD, HP-UX, SGI, or SPARC Solaris.
Before trying to dive into Praat’s source code, you should be familiar with the working of the Praat program and with writing Praat scripts. The Praat program can be downloaded from http://www.praat.org.
All of the code is available on GitHub under the GNU General Public License. Of course, any improvements are welcomed by the authors.
To download the latest source code of Praat from GitHub, click on the zip or tar.gz archive at the latest release, or fork ("clone") the praat/praat repository at any later change.
First make sure that the source code can be compiled as is.
Then add your own buttons by editing main/main_Praat.cpp or fon/praat_Fon.cpp.
Consult the manual page on Programming.
Most of the source code is written in C++, but some parts are written in C. The code requires that your compiler supports C99 and C++17.
To compile Praat's Windows edition on a 64-bit Windows computer,
install Cygwin on that computer,
and under Cygwin install the Devel packages x86_64-w64-mingw32 (for 64-bit targets)
and/or i686-w64-mingw32 (for 32-bit targets).
Move the Praat sources directory somewhere in your /home/yourname tree,
e.g. as /home/yourname/praats and/or /home/yourname/praats32;
the folders fon and sys shoudl be visible within these folders.
If you want to build Praat's 64-bit edition, type
cd ~/praats
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.mingw64 ./makefile.defs
or if you want to build Praat's 32-bit edition, type
cd ~/praats32
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.mingw32 ./makefile.defs
Then type make to build Praat.exe
(use make -j12 to speed this up, i.e. to use 12 processors in parallel).
Extract the praatXXXX_xcodeproj64.zip file from the latest release
into the directory that contains
sys, fon, dwtools and so on. Then open the project praat64.xcodeproj in Xcode
and choose Build or Run for the target praat_mac64.
Note that on Mojave or Catalina you may have to copy the 10.13 SDK into your Xcode app,
because Praat will have problems with the Dark Mode if you compile with the 10.15 SDK.
If you get an error message like “Code Signing Identity xxx does not match any valid, non-expired,
code-signing certificate in your keychain”, then select the target praat_mac64, go to Info → Build,
and switch “Code Signing Identity” to “Don’t Code Sign”,
or sign with your own certificate if you have one as a registered Apple developer.
If you get lots of errors saying “Expected unqualified-id” or “Unknown type name NSString”, then you may have to switch the Type of some .cpp file from “C++ Source” to “Objective-C++ Source” (under “Identity and Type” in the righthand sidebar).
If you want to build Praat as a library instead of as an executable,
try the target praat_mac64_a (static) or praat_mac64_so (dynamic).
Notarization. If you want others to be able to use your Mac app,
you will probably have to not only sign the executable, but also notarize it. To this end,
do Xcode (11.2) -> Product -> Archive -> Distribute App -> Developer ID -> Upload ->
Automatically manage signing -> Upload -> ...wait... (“Package Approved”) ...wait...
(“Ready to distribute”) -> Export Notarized App). If your Praat.app was built into
~/builds/mac_products/Configuration64, then you can save the notarized
Praat.app in ~/builds/mac_products, then drag it in the Finder to
~/builds/mac_products/Configuration64, overwriting the non-notarized
Praat.app that was already there. If on the way you receive an error
“App Store Connect Operation Error -- You must first sign the relevant contracts online”,
you have to log in to developer.apple.com and do Review Agreement -> Agree;
you may then also have to go to App Store Connect, log in, then Agreements, Tax, and Banking
-> View and Agree to Terms (even if you have no paid apps).
To set up the required system libraries, install some graphics and sound packages:
sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev
sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
sudo apt-get install libjack-dev
To set up your source tree for Linux, go to Praat's sources directory (where the folders fon and sys are)
and type one of the three following commands:
# on Ubuntu command line
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.pulse ./makefile.defs
# on Chromebook command line
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.chrome64 ./makefile.defs
# on Raspberry Pi command line
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.rpi ./makefile.defs
To build the Praat executable, type make.
If your Unix isn’t Linux, you may have to edit the library names in the makefile
(you may need pthread, gtk-x11-2.0, gdk-x11-2.0, atk-1.0, pangoft2-1.0, gdk_pixbuf-2.0, m, pangocairo-1.0,
cairo, gio-2.0, pango-1.0, freetype, fontconfig, gobject-2.0, gmodule-2.0, gthread-2.0, rt, glib-2.0, asound, jack).
When compiling Praat on an external supercomputer or so, you will not have sound.
If you do have libgtk2.0-dev (and its dependencies), do
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.silent ./makefile.defs
Then type make to build the program. If your Unix isn’t Linux,
you may have to edit the library names in the makefile (you may need pthread, gtk-x11-2.0, gdk-x11-2.0, atk-1.0,
pangoft2-1.0, gdk_pixbuf-2.0, m, pangocairo-1.0, cairo, gio-2.0, pango-1.0, freetype, fontconfig, gobject-2.0,
gmodule-2.0, gthread-2.0, rt, glib-2.0).
When compiling Praat for use as a server for commands from your web pages, you may not need sound or a GUI. Do
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.nogui ./makefile.defs
which creates the executable praat_nogui. If you don't need graphics (e.g. PNG files) either
(i.e. you need only Praat's computation), you can create an even lighter edition:
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.barren ./makefile.defs
which creates the executable praat_barren. Then type make to build the program. If your Unix isn’t Linux,
you may have to edit the library names in the makefile.
The easiest way to develop your Praat clone on all platforms simultaneously,
is to edit the source code on a Mac (with Xcode)
and use Parallels Desktop for Windows and Linux building and testing.
This is how Praat is currently developed.
Editing takes place in Xcode,
after which building Praat involves no more than typing Command-B into Xcode
(or Command-R to build and run)
or praat-build into a Windows or Linux terminal (or praat-run to build and run).
Your source code folders, such as fon and sys, will reside in a folder like /Users/yourname/Praats/src,
where you also put praat64.xcodeproj, as described above in 3.2.
On Paul’s 2018 MacBook Pro with Xcode 11.2, building Praat with Command-B or Command-R,
after cleaning the build folder with Shift-Command-K, takes 1 minute and 30 seconds (optimization level O3).
Under Parallels Desktop 15 or later, install Windows 10. In Windows 10, install Cygwin,
and create a praats folder, as described above in 3.1.
There are two options for your source tree: either it resides on the MacOS disk (which you will mount from Windows anyway), or it resides on the Windows disk. Compiling Praat for Windows on the MacOS disk takes 13 minutes (optimization level O3), whereas compiling Praat on the Windows disk takes only 4 minutes and 20 seconds. So we go with installing the source tree under the Cygwin home folder, as follows.
You need to get the source from the MacOS disk, so you have to mount the MacOS disk
from Cygwin. This is easy: in Parallels Desktop, choose Windows 10 -> Configure,
then Options, then Sharing, then Share Mac, and set Share folders to Home folder only
(if this scares you, then use Custom Folders instead).
Your MacOS home folder (i.e. /Users/yourname) is now visible anywhere on Windows 10
as the Z drive (or so), and from the Cygwin64 Terminal you can access it as /cygdrive/z.
When developing Praat for Windows, you just edit your files in Xcode;
do not forget to save them (as you do e.g. by building in Xcode).
Then, just as you use Command-B and Command-R in Xcode,
you will be able to type praat-build (which only builds) or praat-run (which builds and runs)
into your Cygwin64 Terminal. To accomplish this,
add the following definitions into /home/yourname/.profile in your Cygwin home folder,
so that the bash shell will automatically execute them whenever you start your Cygwin64 Terminal:
# in Cygwin:~/.profile
PRAAT_SOURCES="/cygdrive/z/Praats/src"
PRAAT_EXCLUDES='--exclude="*.xcodeproj" --exclude="Icon*" --exclude=".*" --exclude="*kanweg*"'
alias praat-build="( cd ~/praats &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.mingw64 makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praat="~/praats/Praat.exe"
alias praat-run="praat-build && praat"
This also defines praat for running Praat without first rebuilding it.
The cycle from editing Praat on the Mac to running the new version on Windows therefore takes only two steps:
- edit and save the source code in Xcode on your Mac;
- type
praat-runon your Windows 10 (under Parallels Desktop on your Mac).
If you also want to develop the 32-bit edition, you add to .profile:
# in Cygwin:~/.profile
alias praat32-build="( cd ~/praats32 &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.mingw32 makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praat32="~/praats32/Praat.exe"
alias praat32-run="praat32-build && praat32"
Under Parallels Desktop 15 or later, install Ubuntu 18.04, and create
a folder praats in your home folder, as described above in 3.3.
In Parallels Desktop, choose Ubuntu 18.04 -> Configure,
then Options, then Sharing, then Share Mac, and set Share folders to Home folder only
(or use Custom Folders instead).
Your MacOS home folder (i.e. /Users/yourname) is now visible on the Ubuntu 18.04 desktop
as Home, and from the Terminal you can access it as /media/psf/Home.
When developing Praat for Linux, you just edit and save your files in Xcode.
You will be able to type praat-build (which only builds) or praat-run (which builds and runs)
into your Terminal after you add the following definitions into
/home/parallels/.bash_aliases in your Ubuntu 18.04 home folder
(this will be run automatically by .bashrc whenever you start a Terminal window,
assuming that it uses the bash shell):
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
PRAAT_SOURCES="/media/psf/Home/Praats/src"
PRAAT_EXCLUDES='--exclude="*.xcodeproj" --exclude="Icon*" --exclude=".*" --exclude="*kanweg*"'
alias praat-build="( cd ~/praats &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.pulse makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praat="~/praats/praat"
alias praat-run="praat-build && praat"
Building Praat this way takes 2 minutes and 10 seconds (optimization level O3).
To build praat_barren, create a folder praatsb, and define
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
alias praatb-build="( cd ~/praatsb &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.barren makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praatb="~/praatsb/praat_barren"
alias praatb-run="praatb-build && praatb"
You test praat_barren briefly by typing
# on Ubuntu command line
praatb --version
To build praat_nogui, create a folder praatsn, and define
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
alias praatn-build="( cd ~/praatsn &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.nogui makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praatn="~/praatsn/praat_nogui"
alias praatn-run="praatn-build && praatn"
You test praat_nogui briefly by typing
# on Ubuntu command line
praatn --version
To build Praat for Chrome64 (64-bit Intel Chromebooks only),
create a folder praatc, and define
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
alias praatc-build="( cd ~/praatsc &&\
rsync -rptvz $PRAAT_SOURCES/ $PRAAT_EXCLUDES . &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.chrome64 makefile.defs &&\
make -j12 )"
alias praatc="~/praatsc/praat"
alias praatc-run="praatc-build && praat"
To test Praat for Chrome64, you can just run it on Ubuntu 18.04 by typing praatc,
or you transfer it to a Chromebook for the real test.
Parallels Desktop 15 has no emulator for Chrome, so the choice is between building Praat on a Chromebook directly or building Praat on Ubuntu 18.04. On a 2019 HP Chromebook with Intel processor, building Praat takes a forbidding 27 minutes.
So we choose to build Praat on Ubuntu 18.04 (under Parallels Desktop on the Mac),
because building the Intel Chrome64 edition on Ubuntu 18.04 takes only
2 minutes and 10 seconds. If you have the Linux set-up described in 4.3,
you can do this with the bc command.
Next, you need a way to get the executable praat from Mac/Ubuntu to your Chromebook.
The distributors of Praat do this via an intermediary university computer;
let’s call this computer-in-the-middle fon.hum.uva.nl
(not coincidentally, that’s the name of the computer that hosts praat.org).
If you have an account on that computer (say it’s called yourname),
then you can access that account with ssh, and it is best to do that without
typing your password each time. To accomplish this, type
# on Ubuntu command line
ssh-keygen
on your Ubuntu 18.04. This gives you a file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on your Ubuntu 18.04,
which contains your public ssh key. You should append the contents of this id_rsa.pub
to the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your intermediary computer. From that moment on,
your intermediary computer will accept rsync -e ssh calls from your Ubuntu 18.04.
On the intermediary computer, create a folder ~/builds, and a folder chrome64 inside that.
If you now define
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
praatc-put="rsync -tpvz ~/praatsc/praat [email protected]:~/builds/chrome64"
praatc-mid="praatc-build && praatc-put"
you can build and send Praat for Chrome to the intermediary computer by just typing
# on Ubuntu command line
praatc-mid
On your Chromebook, start up Linux (see the Chromebook download page for details),
create a directory ~/praats there, and define the following:
# in Chromebook:~/.bash_aliases
alias praat-get="( cd ~/praats &&\
rsync -tpvz [email protected]:~/builds/chrome64/praat . )"
alias praat="~/praats/praat"
alias praat-run="praat-get && praat"
From then on, you can use
# on Chromebook command line
praat-run
to fetch Praat from the intermediary computer and run it.
The cycle from editing Praat on the Mac to running it on your Chromebook therefore takes only three steps:
- edit and save the source code in Xcode on your Mac;
- type
praatc-midon your Ubuntu (under Parallels Desktop on your Mac); - type
praat-runon your Chromebook.
For edits in a cpp file (no changes in header files), this whole cycle can be performed within 15 seconds.
One could perhaps create the Raspberry Pi edition by cross-compiling on Ubuntu 18.04.
If any reader of these lines has precise instructions, we would like to know about it
(the main problem is how to install the GTK etc libraries in the Raspberry Pi toolchain,
or how to get dpkg under Ubuntu-buster to actually find armhf libraries).
Till then, you build on the Raspberry Pi itself. Your could do that via an intermediary computer
(analogously to what we described above for Chromebook), but you can also do it directly
if you include your Raspberry Pi in the same local network as your Mac and switch on SSH
on your Raspberry Pi (via Raspberry -> Preferences -> Raspberry Pi Configuration
-> Interfaces -> SSH -> Enable. You add your Mac’s public SSH key to your Raspberry Pi with
# on Mac command line
ssh-keygen # only if you have no SSH key yet
ssh-copy-id [email protected] # or whatever your Pi’s static IP address is
On your Raspberry Pi, you create a folder ~/praats,
after which you can push the sources from your Mac to your Raspberry Pi with
# in Mac:~/.bash_profile
PRAAT_SOURCES="~/Praats/src"
PRAAT_EXCLUDES='--exclude="*.xcodeproj" --exclude="Icon*" --exclude=".*" --exclude="*kanweg*"'
alias praats-putpi="rsync -rptvz -e ssh $PRAAT_EXCLUDES \
$PRAAT_SOURCES/ [email protected]:~/praats"
On the Raspberry Pi, you define
# in RaspberryPi:~/.bash_aliases
alias praat-build="( cd ~/praats &&\
cp makefiles/makefile.defs.linux.rpi makefile.defs &&\
make -j4 )"
alias praat="~/praats/praat"
alias praat-run="praat-build && praat"
after which you can build and run Praat with
# on Raspberry Pi command line
praat-run
Thus, the cycle from editing Praat on the Mac to running it on your Raspberry Pi therefore takes three steps:
- edit and save the source code in Xcode on your Mac;
- type
praats-putpion your Mac; - type
praat-runon your Raspberry Pi, perhaps viassh -X [email protected]in your Mac terminal.
From clean sources this takes around 19 minutes (on a Raspberry Pi 4B), but if no header files change, then it can be done in approximately 20 seconds.
If you want to distribute your version of Praat, you can do so on GitHub and/or on a website
(at least, that’s how the main authors do it). Both of these venues require that you have
all the executables in one place. The guide below refers to the creation of packages
for all platforms for Praat version 9.9.99, although your version number will be different.
The packages will be collected in the directory ~/Praats/www on the Mac.
If you follow the location mentioned in the .xcodeproj file, the Mac binary will reside
in a place like ~/builds/mac_products/Configuration64.
After notarizing the Mac binary (see above under 3.2),
you include the executable in a .dmg disk image, with the following commands:
# on Mac command line
PRAAT_WWW=~/Praats/www
PRAAT_VERSION=9999
cd ~/builds/mac_products/Configuration64
hdiutil create -fs HFS+ -ov -srcfolder Praat.app -volname Praat64_${PRAAT_VERSION} praat64_${PRAAT_VERSION}.dmg
hdiutil convert -ov -format UDZO -o ${PRAAT_WWW}/praat${PRAAT_VERSION}_mac64.dmg praat64_${PRAAT_VERSION}.dmg
rm praat64_${PRAAT_VERSION}.dmg
You also need to distribute the .xcodeproj file, which is actually a folder, so that you have to zip it:
# on Mac command line
PRAAT_SOURCES="~/Praats/src
cd $PRAAT_SOURCES
zip -r $PRAAT_WWW/praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_xcodeproj64.zip praat64.xcodeproj
The Windows executables have to be sent from your Cygwin terminal to your Mac.
It is easiest to do this without a version number (so that you have to supply the number only once),
so you send them to the intermediate Mac folders ~/builds/win64 and ~/builds/win32.
On Cygwin you can define:
# in Cygwin:~/.profile
alias praat-dist="praat-build && rsync -t ~/praats/Praat.exe /cygdrive/z/builds/win64"
alias praat32-dist="praat32-build && rsync -t ~/praats32/Praat.exe /cygdrive/z/builds/win32"
so that you can “upload” the two executables to the Mac with
# on Cygwin command line
praat-dist
praat32-dist
The four Linux executables have to be sent from your Ubuntu terminal to your Mac,
namely to the folders ~/builds/linux64 (which will contain praat, praat_barren and
praat_nogui) and ~/builds/chrome64 (which will contain only praat).
On Ubuntu you can define
# in Ubuntu:~/.bash_aliases
alias praat-dist="praat-build && rsync -t ~/praats/praat /media/psf/Home/builds/linux64"
alias praatb-dist="praatb-build && rsync -t ~/praatsb/praat_barren /media/psf/Home/builds/linux64"
alias praatn-dist="praatn-build && rsync -t ~/praatsn/praat_nogui /media/psf/Home/builds/linux64"
alias praatc-dist="praatc-build && rsync -t ~/praatsc/praat /media/psf/Home/builds/chrome64"
so that you can “upload” the four executables to the Mac with
# on Ubuntu command line
praat-dist
praatb-dist
praatn-dist
praatc-dist
You can fetch the Raspberry Pi edition directly from your Raspberry Pi:
# on Mac command line
rsync -tpvz [email protected]:~/praats/praat ~/builds/rpi_armv7
When the folders under ~/builds, namely win64, win32, linux64, chrome64 and rpi_armv7
all contain enough new executables (there should be 1, 1, 3, 1 and 1, respectively),
you can issue the following commands to create the packages and install them in ~/Praats/www:
# on Mac command line
zip $PRAAT_WWW/praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_win64.zip ~/builds/win64/Praat.exe
zip $PRAAT_WWW/praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_win32.zip ~/builds/win32/Praat.exe
( cd ~/builds/linux64 &&\
tar cvf praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64.tar praat &&\
gzip praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64.tar &&\
mv praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64.tar.gz $PRAAT_WWW )
( cd ~/builds/linux64 &&\
tar cvf praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64barren.tar praat_barren &&\
gzip praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64barren.tar &&\
mv praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64barren.tar.gz $PRAAT_WWW )
( cd ~/builds/linux64 &&\
tar cvf praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64nogui.tar praat_nogui &&\
gzip praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64nogui.tar &&\
mv praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_linux64nogui.tar.gz $PRAAT_WWW )
( cd ~/builds/chrome64 &&\
tar cvf praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_chrome64.tar praat &&\
gzip praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_chrome64.tar &&\
mv praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_chrome64.tar.gz $PRAAT_WWW )
( cd ~/builds/rpi_armv7 &&\
tar cvf praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_rpi_armv7.tar praat &&\
gzip praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_rpi_armv7.tar &&\
mv praat$(PRAAT_VERSION)_rpi_armv7.tar.gz $PRAAT_WWW )
Finally, you can update your website and/or create a new release on GitHub.