Balabolka fulfills your requirements:
- is gratis (freeware, not open-source)
- works on windows (I use it on Windows 10, but the website says it supports Windows 11 as well)
- works offline
- works “cut and paste”
- can just play the text in order to listen to the text
- can save as WAV and MP3
- no web browser needed
However, the problem with typical TTS is not the program, but the voices. Balabolka works with Microsoft SAPI voices and it’ll be hard to get good gratis voices. If you compare Microsoft David or Microsoft Zira to what you get from modern AI generated stuff, that’s far behind.
The website lists many places where you can get voices. Please note that even if you buy them, you can still not use most of them commercially (AFAIK, last checked ~2019).
