Free online teleprompter

How to read from a teleprompter without sounding like it

Set the speed a little slower than you think. Most people read faster than they speak, and a prompter that runs ahead makes you rush. Start at 140 words a minute, do one take, then nudge it up or down with the arrow keys or the minus and plus buttons. The time left updates as you change it, so you know how long the video will be.

Keep your eyes on the reading line, the two small yellow marks, and let the words come to you. Don't chase the text or read ahead. If you lose your place, press Space or tap the words to pause, drag the text back a line, and carry on. You can cut the stumble later.

Write the script the way you talk. Start a new line wherever you'd take a breath, leave an empty line between ideas, and type // where you want a beat. The marks show in the prompter but don't count as words, so they won't change the timing. Short sentences read better than long ones, and contractions (it's, you'll) sound more like you.

Follow my voice: scrolling that keeps up with you

Tap the microphone while you read. It listens to your voice and matches the words you say against your script, so the text scrolls automatically in real time. Pause and it waits. Repeat a line and it goes back. Skip ahead and it catches up after a few words. The word you're on is highlighted and the words you've said fade. Tap the microphone again to stop, and if it ever loses your place, tap the word you're on.

It works in Chrome, Edge and Safari, on computers and phones. In Chrome or Edge on a computer, your speech is usually processed on the computer itself. On phones and in Safari, your browser turns your speech into text with its own speech service (Google's or Apple's), the same way voice typing works. Krafto never hears or stores your voice. The switch tells you which one you're using. Firefox doesn't support it.

It understands English for now and works best in a quiet room at an easy pace. It listens for the words in your script, so a name it doesn't know is simply skipped. For a fast, well-rehearsed read, a set speed is still the steadier choice, and that's what the teleprompter does unless you turn this on.

Setting it up on a phone, a laptop, or teleprompter glass

On a phone, tap Start, then Camera. The words appear at the top, under the front camera, and the camera picture fills the rest of the screen. Prop the phone at eye height, about an arm's length away, so you look straight into the lens and not down at it.

On a laptop, raise the screen so the camera is level with your eyes (a stack of books works), set the text width to 50 or 60 percent so the words stay near the middle, and sit back far enough that your eyes don't sweep from side to side. If you film with a separate camera, put the laptop right behind or under it.

With teleprompter glass (a beam splitter in front of the lens), the screen lies flat or faces up into the glass and you read its reflection, which comes out backwards. Turn on Mirror for glass so it reads the right way round. Some rigs also reflect top to bottom; if the words are upside down, turn on Upside down too. Make the text big: you're reading from further away than you would on a phone.

Tips for a better take

Light your face from the front, with a window or a lamp behind the phone, not behind you. Turn off notifications, and use a quiet room with soft things in it (a sofa, curtains), which sound far better than a bare kitchen.

Leave the 3-2-1 countdown on. The camera starts recording when you press record and the words start moving after the count, so every take begins with a few clean seconds to trim. Take a breath and smile before your first line.

Record in short sections if the script is long. Three two-minute takes are easier to get right than one six-minute take, and you can join them when you edit. A take stops by itself at 10 minutes.

Watch each take back before you download it, and download the ones you keep straight away: a take lives only on this page, and a retake replaces it.