1. Downloading the Macintosh edition

To download the latest version of the MacOS X edition of Praat, which runs on MacOS 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 (on Intel processors), click once on the following disk image:

praat5349_mac.dmg (13 May 2013; 6.9 MB)

After downloading, your web browser might open the disk image file praat5349_mac.dmg directly; you will then see the program Praat or Praat.app. If your browser did not open the disk image file praat5349_mac.dmg, then you should double-click praat5349_mac.dmg in the Downloads window (or in the Downloads folder in your home directory); after double-clicking you may see the program Praat or Praat.app directly, or you may see a disk icon called Praat5349, which when you open it will show you the program Praat or Praat.app. To install Praat, just drag the program Praat or Praat.app to your Applications folder (or anywhere else).

2. How to start

To start up the Praat program, just double-click it. If you use Praat for the first time, choose Intro from the Help menu.

3. Phonetic symbols

If you want to see good-quality phonetic characters on your screen and in your clipboard, you have to install the Charis SIL and/or the Doulos SIL font. These fonts were created by the Summer Institute of Linguistics. To install them, first download the archives:

CharisSIL-4.110.zip

DoulosSIL-4.110.zip

Then unpack the .zip files, if your web browser has not already done that. This will give you folders called CharisSIL4 and DoulosSIL4. When you open these folders, you will see TrueType fonts such as CharisSILR.ttf, CharisSILB.ttf, CharisSILI.ttf, CharisSILBI.ttf, and DoulosSILR.ttf. Drag these five fonts to the /Library/Fonts folder in the top folder on your hard disk, if you have write access to that folder. Alternatively, you could put the fonts in the Library/Fonts folder in your home folder, although other users of your computer cannot use them in that case.

4. Tuning Praat to your Macintosh

Sounds are recorded into a buffer whose size you can set with "Sound recording preferences".

The best way to produce pictures is to use the clipboard or "Save as PDF file..." in the Picture window. Both the clipboard and "Save as PDF file..." produce PDF pictures. Most word-processing programs newer than 2006 accept such PDF pictures, at least on the Mac; if you use Microsoft Word 2008, make sure to save your document as a .docx file, because if you save it as a .doc file, Word will convert the inserted PDF pictures into mediocre bitmaps.

5. Editions of Praat for older computers or operating system versions

• If you want to copy-paste to Word 2004, or to open the audio in a movie, or to open Sound Designer II files, try Praat 5.3.14 of 28 April 2012.
• On MacOS 10.5 with a PowerPC processor, try Praat 5.2.17 of 2 March 2011.
• On MacOS 10.4, try Praat 5.2.17 of 2 March 2011.
• On MacOS 10.2 or 10.3, try Praat 5.1.19 (dmg or sit) of 21 October 2009.
• On MacOS 10.1, try Praat 4.1.13 of 22 October 2003.
• On System 8.5 to 9.2, try praat4501_mac9.sit of 28 October 2006 and install the fonts from silipa93.sit. Use File/Info in the Finder to give Praat one third of your computer's memory.
• On System 7, try praat4223_mac7.sit of 17 November 2004 and install the fonts from silipa93.sit. Use File/Info in the Finder to give Praat one third of your computer's memory.