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Installation Guide
Table of Contents
If you get stuck, see the troubleshooting guide or ask for help on the Plover Discord Server or in the steno community.
Unsure which version to download? You have a few options, depending on your needs:
- The Continuous Release (version 4)
The latest features and developments. See the guides on this page (Windows, Linux, Mac) to see which files to download and follow up instructions.
If you are upgrading from version 3, you may need to upgrade the dictionaries to the newest version.
If you are looking for a specific version of Plover. It is usually recommended that you download the continuous version above, but if you are upgrading you may want to look here for the list of things that have changed since your previous version.
If you want to build from source (e.g. if you are a developer), follow the guide for your OS linked above.
Each release has files for all the operating systems we support. You only need the files that are relevant to your operating system
- Download the
.exefile from the release page.
- You can place the file anywhere on your computer. You will run it from the same location every time.
- Open the file to launch Plover.
If you have Homebrew Cask installed on your system, you can run brew install --cask plover at the command-line. Otherwise:
- Download the
.dmgfile from the release page. - Open the
.dmgfile. - In the mounted disk, drag the
Plover.appto yourApplicationsfolder. - Open
System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. - Click the "+" Button, and go to your applications and select
Plover.app.
If you use a keyboard instead of a steno machine, Plover needs Assistive Device Permissions. From the Catalina version of macOS, you may need to enable both the Plover app and the env app under Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility.
Plover is set up! You can run Plover like you would any other application.
Note: Other "keyboard helper"-type applications (e.g. Karabiner Elements and text expanders) may interfere with Plover.
An AppImage is provided: it includes all the necessary dependencies and should run on most x86 64-bits distributions. To use it:
- Download it
- Make it executable
- Launch it like a standard executable
Note: you can install the AppImage for your current user (and register Plover in your standard applications menu) by executing it with the
--installflag. If you had previously installed another AppImage version of Plover, it will be automatically uninstalled and replaced.
As of April 2021 AppImage files are not in the latest stable version but can be found in weeklies or weekly. AppImage files will also be provided with the next stable release of Plover (4.0.0).
For devices such as the Georgi and Tiny Mod which have serial modes (Gemini PR, or TX Bolt), you will have to add yourself to the uucp or dialout groups depending on your distro. These are the owners of /dev/ttyACM*, which is usually where your keyboard will show up. You can run ls -l /dev/ttyACM* when your keyboard is plugged in to find out which group owns the port.
To add a user to a group, you can use the command sudo usermod -aG <group> <user>.
For example: sudo usermod -aG dialout bob or sudo usermod -aG uucp sue.
If the following error occurs when running the AppImage:
Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found. This application failed to start because noQt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
Ensure that libxcb, xcb-util and qt5-qtstyleplugins are installed (or whatever the equivalent packages are on your distro).
If the error still persists, run the following:
./plover.AppImage -s plover_plugins install -v 'PyQt5==5.14.2' 'PyQt5-sip==12.7.2'
Note that the exact name of the AppImage will change depending on which version you install.
Two AUR packages are provided:
- plover for the latest stable release
- and plover-git for the current
master
Note: the plugins manager is not part of plover-git, and is available as a separate package.
Currently, only a git ebuild for the master branch is provided.
Initially, Plover is set up to use your computer keyboard as a steno machine. If you have a steno machine, you'll need to configure Plover to look for your machine. Please check the Supported Hardware page to find instructions specific to your machine.