Getting started

Help

Setting it up takes about two minutes, and only the first step is fiddly — Android makes every keyboard do it.

Set it up

Seven steps, about three minutes. Only the second one is fiddly, and that is Android protecting you from browsers rather than anything to do with this app.

Install it

7 steps

1. Get the file

Tap Download on the download page. It is an .apk — an Android app that installs directly, without a store.

About 17 MB.

↓
whisperkeyboard.apk

2. Let your browser install it

Open the file. Android stops you the first time, because a browser is not allowed to install apps until you say so.

“For your security, your phone is not allowed to install unknown apps from this source.”

Tap Settings on that message, turn on Allow from this source, and open the file again. That is a permission for your browser, not for this app.

⚠
the warning you were told to expect

3. Install it

Tap Install. Play Protect may offer to scan it — let it, it takes a second.

“App scanned. No problems detected.”
✓
installed

4. Turn the keyboard on

Android does not enable a keyboard just because it is installed. Go to Settings → System → Languages & input → On-screen keyboard → Manage keyboards and switch it on.

“This input method may be able to collect all the text you type…”

Android shows that for every keyboard, including the one you use now. What this one does with it is on the privacy page.

⚙
Manage keyboards

5. Switch to it

Open any app and tap a text box. A keyboard icon appears in the navigation bar — tap it and pick Ownword.

You can switch back the same way, any time.

⇆
pick it from the switcher

6. Add your key

Everything works now except the microphone. Open the app from your launcher — the Get started card walks you through it, and ticks each step off as you go: Email a request opens a pre-filled message, Paste key takes the key from your clipboard, saves it, and tests it there and then.

The card also has buttons for the two keyboard steps above, so you can do them from inside the app. Request a key if you have not got one.

🔑
saved and tested

7. Get the speech model

Once the key connects, tap Download the model on the card. About 273 MB, fetched once with your key, and from then on dictation runs on the phone itself — nothing you say leaves it. The row shows the download as it comes in.

The card goes away once the model is in use. Other models, larger and smaller, are under Voice → Speech models.

🎤
and then dictate

Everything else

Pick a subject. Every word of it is on the page whether it is showing or not, so a search finds it either way.

Keys that do more when you hold them

Six keys have a second action behind a press-and-hold, and each carries a dot in the corner to say so.

That dot is the whole hint, and it is the same convention every keyboard uses for a key with alternates.

Hold thisAnd you get
PasteClipboard history — everything you copied recently, newest first, each dated and coloured by what it is. Type to search it without leaving the keyboard. Tap one to insert it, hold one to remove it, or clear the lot.
SendSent messages — the last 50 things you sent, dated and marked typed or dictated, searchable the same way, to send one again or pull a phrase back.
MicrophoneRecordings — every dictation kept and dated, searchable, to re-insert the transcript or re-send audio that never went through.
CameraRecord video instead of taking a photo. Both go to your own storage.
The full stopA question mark in its place. A tap is still a full stop.
The speaker key (with read aloud on)Read or summarise — a switch at the top chooses what a tap does. Read aloud: the selection, the whole field, or what you copied. Summarise: the same, summarised by your models and the summary read to you. While something is being read, the player: back a sentence, back or forward 10 seconds, pause, the speed, stop. A tap reads (or summarises) the selection, and stops a reading.
The echo key (with read aloud on)Your voices, one row each, the ones you pick most first, with a search box — tap one and it becomes your voice, ready for the next recording; the count at the end of a row opens its feelings. A tap on its own records; tap again and your words go into the field and are read back.
PaperclipStraight to your file store, skipping the menu.
The AI keyAsk a question — it starts recording at once, and Send on the strip or the same key stops it. Also Summarise what I copied (or the selection), shown on its page, Fix what is in the field (the selection, or all of it, typed or dictated), Fix my last dictation, which project to fix against, how much to change, and your searchable history. Each row wears its own colour. A tap on its own asks a question: it starts recording, and the same key sends it.
A suggestionMore options for the word, plus Add to my dictionary and Report a missed fix when the keyboard does not know it. After a swipe, every word the swipe could have been instead, up to eight, with the one that went in named at the top; tap one to swap it in.
The dictate key, on any keyboard layoutEverything you have dictated, full screen — searchable, expandable, and every transcript can be inserted straight back into what you were typing, or copied. Holding it never starts a recording; the key acts when you lift your finger.
The check keyWhat reads your text — the word pairs, at every full stop — and the way to its settings. A tap opens every fix waiting, one at a time, with the old word struck through and the new one beside it: Use, Skip, Keep or Apply all.
The radio key, on the symbols panel (accounts with a session board)The session board — play or stop its sound, stop it on the computer too, or open the board in the browser. It is blue, and green while the board plays; a tap plays its sound or stops it. Everywhere else the key is a new line.

Nothing is hidden behind a gesture only: everything above is also in Settings or on the features page. The hold is a shortcut, not the door.

And outside the keyboard

Ask Ownword is a chip on the top row of the share sheet in any app: share a page and it is summarised, share text and it is read. Hold the chip and choose Pin to keep it first. Select text instead and the menu over it offers the same.

Dictating

Hold to speak. What to do when the words do not come back.

The voice keyboard: a large central microphone key, with camera, backspace and send beside it
The microphone is the large key. Hold it to reopen past recordings.
The voice panel while recording: a red microphone, the elapsed time, a level meter, and the size and rate of the audio so far
While it is recording: the microphone turns red, and under it the meter moves with your voice next to how much audio there is and how fast it is arriving. A dead microphone looks different from a quiet room.
To do thisDo this
Start dictatingTap the microphone key
Stop and transcribeTap it again
Retry a failed oneTap the amber microphone
Reopen past recordingsHold the microphone key
Insert an old transcriptTap its row in that list
Re-send audio that never transcribedTap its row — it offers to send again
Delete a recordingHold its row
Copy a recent transcriptSettings → Your data → Recordings → Review

If a transcription fails

It is retried twice on its own, then the microphone turns amber and waits for you. Your audio is never discarded — not on failure, not on timeout, not if you close the keyboard. If the failure was the network, the retry fires by itself when a working connection comes back.

Typing

Layouts, the number row, symbols and emoji.

The QWERTY layout with number row, suggestion strip and an action row of cursor and clipboard keys
Three suggestions above the keys; the middle one is the strongest. Hold any of them for more.
To do thisDo this
Accept a suggestionTap it in the strip above the keys
See more suggestionsHold any of the three
Undo an autocorrectionTap the green badge in the preview bar
Teach it a wordHold that word in the preview bar, then Add to my dictionary
Report a correction it missedHold that word, then Report a missed fix
Get back a draft you lostNothing — reopen the keyboard on the same field and it is already there
Type an accented letterHold the letter (turn on Long-press accents first)
Reach symbols?123, bottom left
Reach emojiThe smiley key beside ?123
Add a line breakThe ↵ key — not Send, which submits
Type / in a web address, @ in an emailThe key where the comma is: in those fields it becomes the one they need
Jump to the start or endThe two skip keys in the action row; tap the field to place the caret anywhere else
Reopen something you sentHold the send key
Delete a whole wordHold backspace
Type a question markHold the full stop

Files, photos and video

Attaching from the keyboard, and where a photo goes.

The full-screen file browser with sort chips and a Save button on each row
Sort chips stay put while the list scrolls. Save writes straight to Downloads.
To do thisDo this
Open SettingsTap the gear at the end of the row of small icons
Clear the whole fieldTap the × in that same row. It can be taken back with the undo key on either symbol panel, which is why it does not ask you to confirm
Open the file menuTap the paperclip
Attach a file to the messagePaperclip → Insert into message
Upload a file to your storagePaperclip → Send to Exchange
Put an uploaded file in the messagePaperclip → Insert one I uploaded
Browse and downloadPaperclip → Browse my files
See what you have uploaded, without typingSettings → Files
Upload from SettingsSettings → Files → Upload a file
Take a photoTap the camera key
Record videoHold the camera key
Save a file to the phoneTap Save on its row — it goes to Downloads
Change the orderTap a sort chip: newest, oldest, name or size

Making it yours

Layout, accent colour, and what the keyboard learns from you.

The emoji panel, showing category tabs and a grid of faces
Seven categories and a recents row, which fills in as you use them.

All of this lives in the Ownword app, which you open from your launcher rather than from the keyboard itself.

  • Layout — QWERTY, Dvorak, left hand or right hand. Changing it takes effect the next time the keyboard opens.
  • Number row — on by default. Turning it off gives the letters more height, which some people prefer on a small screen. It shows in landscape too, so the digits are one tap away whichever way up the phone is.
  • Accent colour — tints the microphone, send and paperclip keys.
  • Long-press accents — off by default so the popup never interrupts anyone typing plain English. Turn it on if you write in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese or Italian.
  • Start on keyboard — if you type more than you speak, open on the letters instead of the microphone.

Your typing, measured

Where the figures live and what each of them means.

The typing statistics card showing 41 words per minute, 94% typed clean and 38% by voice
Counts and durations only. No text is kept.

The card at the top of Settings fills in once there is enough to average over. Rates are withheld below 200 typed characters rather than printing a figure too noisy to mean anything.

  • Words per minute counts only active typing. Pauses over five seconds are treated as thinking and left out, so putting the phone down does not make you look slow.
  • Typed clean is the share of your text that needed no correction.
  • Corrections kept is the one worth watching. If it drops, autocorrect is fighting you rather than helping, and turning off aggressive mode is the first thing to try.

Hold the card to reset every counter. It is counts and durations only — no text is stored, so there is nothing in it that could reconstruct what you wrote.

Common problems

Dictation not working, the keyboard not appearing, a key doing nothing.

The microphone key does nothing

Either permission was denied twice — in which case Android stops showing the prompt and you have to grant it in system Settings — or there is no speech model on the phone yet. The strip says so; Settings, Voice, Speech models fetches one with your key.

"Key rejected"

The key is wrong, expired or revoked. Paste it again, watching for a trailing space. If it still fails, ask for a new one.

"Too many requests"

The rate limit is ten requests a minute to your Exchange, counted against the whole account rather than the key — so several people sharing an account share one budget. Dictation is never counted: it happens on the phone.

An upload worked but the file is not in the browser

Almost always two different accounts. Storage belongs to the account the key was issued on, so a key from elsewhere writes to a store you are not looking at.

Dictation is slow

The strip says how long the model took for how much speech, and how long it spent loading. A load of several seconds means the model was unloaded in between — Keep the model loaded on the Voice tab sets how long it stays; a smaller model on the models screen is the other lever.

Autocorrect keeps changing a word I want

Type it and let the correction stand once, then undo it with the badge — that teaches it. Holding an underlined word adds it outright. If it is happening across the board, turn off aggressive correction.

It joined two words together and did not fix it

Catching a key next to the spacebar turns modern chicken into modernbchicken, and ordinary autocorrect cannot help — it works on one word at a time and the mistake destroyed the boundary between two. The keyboard offers the repair in the suggestion strip; tap it to accept.

When it does not offer one, hold the underlined word and choose Report a missed fix. That sends that word with your diagnostics so the rule can be corrected. It is the only thing you type that is ever sent, it never happens automatically, and never in a password field.

The keyboard looks different when I turn the phone

It is. Landscape has about a third of the height portrait does, so the keys are shorter — otherwise the keyboard would cover the whole screen and you could not see what you were typing into. Every key is still reachable; the digits move to ?123. Turn it back and the full keyboard returns.

Text I did not just type appeared in the field

That is a restored draft, and it says Draft restored when it happens. If the keyboard closes while you are part-way through a message, the text is kept so it can be put back when you come back to the same field. It only happens once, only into an empty field, only within an hour, and never after you have sent or cleared. Backspace removes it like any other text.

I want everything gone

Uninstalling removes the lot: key, history, recordings, learned words, statistics. Nothing is backed up to Google, so no copy is left behind. For files you uploaded, ask and they will be deleted.

Still stuck

How to reach a person.

Write to me@rnsu.net. It is read by a person.