How to Use a Teleprompter: Setup & Tips

A teleprompter is a scrollable script display, and it only helps if you use it correctly. The good news: the workflow is the same whether you are using a studio glass rig or an online teleprompter on a laptop. Paste your script, set the pace, keep your eyes on the camera, and the cue disappears into your delivery. This guide works through the four parts of a good read: the station, the script, the pacing, and the recording.

Set up your teleprompter station

1. Put the prompt by the lens. The closer the scrolling text sits to your camera, the more natural your eye contact — on a laptop, position the prompter window just below the webcam. A classic review of gaze research in Psychological Bulletin found eye contact is central to how warm and credible an exchange feels, and more recent work shows direct gaze can make a speaker seem more believable and more competent. Anchor the cue to the lens line — that matters more than screen size.
2. Use a second screen when possible. One screen runs the prompt, the other runs your camera app or meeting. A phone makes a perfect prompter screen on a small desk mount, leaving your laptop camera in full view.
3. Choose a readable style. Large font, comfortable line spacing, and a focus guide anchor your eyes without re-reading lines. On a phone prompter, one line at a time in a large face is often easier than a full paragraph.

Where the prompt goes for each rig

How to setup a teleprompter is mostly a question of where the screen sits, and one rule covers every case: the cue lives as close to the lens as you can get it. Applied to each rig:

Whichever row you are on, the online prompter is the same page in every case — a laptop window, a phone on a stand and a tablet on a riser are the same tool placed three ways.

The angle, the height, the hood

Three details separate a clean read from a sore one on a real rig:

• Glass angle. 45° is the sweet spot — steep enough that the lens shoots through, flat enough that the reflection reaches your eyes.
• Screen height. Raise the prompt to eye level. Dropped eyes read as nerves.
• The hood. Block the screen’s glow from reaching the lens or the audience, or you trade a prompter for a bright halo around your face.

Set the pace once to your voice and you are delivering rather than reading: a read that starts at 140 WPM and eases to 120 on the closing line lands closer to natural than any fixed speed. The types of teleprompters guide covers the same rigs in more depth.

Format the script for a prompter

A prompter magnifies script problems, and the line breaks you choose here decide whether the read flows. The full how to write a teleprompter script guide covers structure and length; for the prompter itself, write the way you speak:

• Short lines, one idea each. If a line wraps, your eye has to sweep back — which reads as a pause and moves your gaze off the lens.
• Spell out numbers and abbreviations. "The drought hit 87 countries" reads smoother than "87" when you are mid-flow; decide once how you want a phrase delivered.
• Mark your pauses. An ellipsis for a breath, a paragraph break for a beat, stage directions like "( slow down )" hidden in curly brackets if your prompter supports them.
• Keep it under your voice. Two minutes of footage is about 300 words at a normal pace. Write short, then trim — good prompting starts on the page.

Pace the read like a pro

• Set a real WPM. Start near 140 words per minute (conversational for most people) and test one practice pass first. Large-corpus speech-rate research measured natural English conversation at close to 200 words per minute on average, so the deliberately slower cue keeps a scripted read crisp rather than rushed. If you know your target duration, a fit-to-time setting can compute the pace for you.
• Nudge live while recording. Use the +/− keys to speed up or slow down mid-take without pausing the scroll. The moment you feel yourself racing, tap down 5 WPM.
• Skim ahead a beat. Read ahead of the guide line slightly so you hear yourself a few words ahead, not one word behind.
• Let the guide drift. Glance at the line, speak, and let your eyes float back to the lens. Don't fixate on the text.

How to use an online teleprompter for video

Broadcast-style reading is where the browser tool shines. Record in your camera app or screen recorder while the online teleprompter scrolls on its own screen or window, and the prompt stays out of that footage entirely. If you would rather capture the prompt with your performance, add the prompter tab as a screen or window source in your recording software and position it in a corner of your frame — the scrolling cue then appears right in the video while your camera and mic do the recording.

• Recording software: any screen recorder or your camera app runs on screen one; the prompter scrolls on screen two.
• Interviews: mount the prompt on a phone beside the webcam for a locked-off, natural read.
• Third take rule: do one pacing pass, one timing pass, then record. The read sounds natural by take three.
• Teleprompter glass: if you have a real rig, turn on mirror mode so the reflection reads forward before you start.

When a teleprompter helps — and when it doesn't

Should you use a teleprompter on a given video? The honest rule: should you use a script? If the words are fixed and the delivery matters, a prompter is the most reliable way to hit them while keeping eye contact. If the content is genuinely improvised — a conversation, a live Q&A — a cue will fight your natural energy, and bullet points serve better. For the wider picture on who actually reads from one — anchors, streamers, singers, teachers — see who uses teleprompters. Where why use one pays off is repeat takes: paste the final copy, set the pace, and the third take lands clean instead of a dozen ad-libs. When in doubt, script the segment you struggle with and leave the rest free.

Using a prompter in video calls and webinars

Yes, you can prompt inside any meeting app. The simplest methods: run the teleprompter on a second screen, or share your screen with the scrolling prompt while you present. Keep your face on the primary camera and glance just below the lens, you see viewers talk, not reading. Because an open prompter window is just another browser tab, it pairs with any video-call app without a plugin.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Leading the race. A cue set faster than your speech pulls you into a hurry. Pace to your voice, not the scroll.
• Staring at the font. Reading one word at a time makes your eyes glaze. Read phrases, skim the line ahead, speak to the lens.
• Staying glued to the screen. Real speakers look away mid-sentence. Let your eyes re-anchor on the guide occasionally, the way you would glance at notes.
• Rebuilding the rig. A phone on a stand or a browser tab beside the webcam is 90% of the benefit; the skill is delivery, not hardware. The remaining 10% of technique is separate — see the guide to reading naturally.

Practice, then prove it

Find your WPM, rehearse to the guide, and record. Because the teleprompter is always available, you can run a full practice session any time: no studio, no cost. When the pacing feels like conversation — voice ahead of the scroll, eyes coming back to the lens — you are using the tool right. The full delivery playbook is in the companion guide to reading a teleprompter naturally, and the founding definitions live in what is a teleprompter.