Teleprompter for Hindi scripts: how to use one on your phone

To use a teleprompter for a Hindi script, type or paste the script in Devanagari, raise the text size well above the English default so the vowel signs stay readable, and start the scroll slower than you would for English — around 130 words per minute, or nearer 105 for a formal register. Everything else about using a phone as a prompter is the same in any language.

This guide is for creators, teachers and professionals recording in Hindi or Marathi on a phone. The general setup — where to put the phone, how far away to sit, how to start a take — is in how to use a teleprompter on your phone; this piece covers what is different when the script is in Devanagari.

Teleprompter app kaise use kare: the short version

For the searcher who asked in Hindi, the four steps first:

1. अपनी स्क्रिप्ट टाइप या पेस्ट करें।
2. टेक्स्ट का साइज़ बड़ा रखें, ताकि मात्राएँ साफ़ दिखें।
3. रिकॉर्ड दबाएँ — स्क्रिप्ट कैमरे के ठीक नीचे चलने लगेगी।
4. रफ़्तार कम या ज़्यादा करनी हो, तो रिकॉर्डिंग के दौरान ही स्लाइडर खिसकाएँ।

In English: write or paste the script; keep the text large so the matras are clear; press record and the script scrolls just under the camera; and adjust the speed with the slider while you are recording. The rest of this page explains why each of those matters for Hindi in particular.

Typing a Hindi script on your phone

You have three practical ways to get Devanagari text onto the phone, and most people end up mixing them.

Type in Devanagari directly

Add Hindi (or Marathi) as a keyboard language in Gboard, Samsung Keyboard or your phone’s built-in keyboard. A Devanagari layout is the most precise option, and the slowest until you are used to it.

Type in English letters, get Devanagari

Gboard’s Hindi keyboard offers a transliteration layout: you type namaste and pick नमस्ते from the suggestions. For most people who learnt to type in English, this is the fastest way to produce a correct Devanagari script. Check the suggestion each time; transliteration guesses badly on names and less common words.

Dictate it, then correct it

Voice typing in Hindi works well enough to produce a first draft, and has the advantage that the script starts out sounding like speech, because it was. Expect to fix punctuation and the odd misheard word.

If you write on a laptop, any document you can copy from — Google Docs, Notes, a WhatsApp message to yourself — pastes into a phone prompter as Unicode text, and Devanagari survives the trip intact. Avoid pasting from PDFs made from scans, which sometimes carry broken conjuncts.

Text size: Devanagari needs more room than English

English letters sit mostly between two lines. Devanagari hangs from the shirorekha, the headline, and stacks marks above it (ि ी े ै ं ँ) and below the letter (ु ू ृ ्). At the same point size, a line of Hindi therefore needs more vertical room to be read at a glance, and on a moving prompter, “at a glance” is the only way you read.

• Go larger than the default. Around 40 points is a sensible starting size for Devanagari on a phone, against the app’s default of 34, which is the same for every script. Larger still is fine; fewer words per line means less sideways eye movement.
• Watch the conjuncts. If क्ष, त्र or श्र look cramped, the size is too small for your eyes at your distance from the phone.
• Use a bit more of the screen. A taller reading band gives Hindi lines the extra height they need without shrinking the text.

Bigger text and a band close to the lens also make the reading less visible on camera; the geometry behind that is in why teleprompter videos still look like you’re reading.

What speed should a Hindi teleprompter run at?

Slower than English, by words per minute, because Hindi words are on average longer, so each one takes longer to say. A prompter that applies an English rate to a Hindi script scrolls visibly too fast.

Your own rate beats both. Read a paragraph of your real script aloud for twenty seconds, count the words and multiply by three. For the general method of setting a scroll speed — and why you set the prompter to your voice rather than chasing the prompter — see the best teleprompter speed, and how to find yours. For how many Hindi words fit a two-, five- or ten-minute video, the per-language column in how many words is a 2-minute speech has them.

Hinglish scripts: Roman letters, Hindi words

Plenty of creators write Hindi in English letters — “Aaj hum baat karenge…” — because it is quicker to type and they read it fluently. That is a perfectly good way to write a script. It has one consequence worth knowing.

A prompter can only see the letters, not the language. Orate works out the writing system by counting which script most of the letters belong to, so a Devanagari script with a few English brand names in it is still paced as Hindi, which is what you want. But a script written entirely in Roman letters is, as far as the app can tell, Latin script — and it opens at the English rate of 150 words per minute.

If your Hinglish script feels fast, pull the pace slider down to about 0.85×, which brings 150 to roughly 128 words per minute, and fine-tune from there. The read-time estimate in the library will also read short for the same reason, so allow around fifteen percent more time than it shows.

Devanagari or Hinglish: which reads better on camera?

• Devanagari is unambiguous: कल is never confused with काल, while kal and kaal depend on how you spelt them that day. Fewer stumbles on hard words.
• Hinglish is faster to write, easier to share with an editor who does not read Devanagari, and natural for scripts that switch to English every other sentence.

Read whichever you read aloud more fluently. If you hesitate on Roman-letter spellings, that hesitation will show on every take.

Writing a Hindi script for the prompter

The general rules for spoken scripts apply in Hindi too — short sentences, one idea each, a hook before your name — and they are set out in how to write a video script. Three points matter more in Hindi:

• Write numbers the way you say them. “₹2,50,000” reads as ढाई लाख रुपये; write that. Decide in advance whether you say figures in Hindi or English, and write them that way.
• Use the register you speak in. A script written in formal, Sanskritised Hindi and spoken by someone who talks in everyday Hindustani sounds read, however good the delivery.
• Put English terms in the script as you will say them. If you say “subscribe”, write सब्सक्राइब or subscribe — not a Hindi coinage you would never use.

Using Orate in Hindi or Marathi

Orate runs entirely in Hindi or Marathi if you want it to — every screen and setting, and the sample script you record on the first day, translated in full rather than only the menus. Bengali, Tamil and Telugu are complete too. Choose it from Settings → Language, which opens your phone’s own per-app language screen; that needs Android 13 or newer, and below that the app follows your device language.

The script language is separate from the app language. Paste a Devanagari script into an English-language app and it is still paced at 130; paste an English script into the Hindi interface and it is paced at 150. In the recorder the script scrolls in a band directly below the front camera, starting with the recording after the countdown (three seconds by default); text size runs from 18 to 96 points and the pace from 0.4× to 2× of the script’s own rate, adjustable mid-take without losing your place.

The free tier records at 1080p and exports with no watermark, and the app works offline with no account, which matters on a patchy connection. If you are choosing between apps, the free teleprompter apps for Android guide compares them, and for YouTube specifically, a teleprompter for YouTube videos covers the phone setup.

Questions people ask

Is there a teleprompter app that supports Hindi?

Yes. Any prompter that renders Unicode text will display Devanagari, but few adjust for it. Orate detects a Devanagari script, opens it at 130 words per minute rather than an English rate, and has its whole interface translated into Hindi and Marathi.

What speed should a teleprompter be for Hindi?

Start between 105 and 130 words per minute. Orate opens Devanagari scripts at 130 as a comfortable conversational default, while Hindi voiceover and news-reading guidance commonly cites around 100 to 110. Read a paragraph for twenty seconds and multiply the words by three to find your own rate.

How do I type a Hindi script on my phone?

Add the Hindi keyboard in Gboard or your phone's keyboard settings. You can type in Devanagari directly, type Hindi words in English letters and pick the Devanagari suggestion, or use voice typing in Hindi and correct the result.

Should I write my script in Hinglish or Devanagari?

Write in whichever script you read most fluently aloud. Devanagari keeps pronunciation unambiguous; Hinglish in Roman letters is faster for many people to type and read. In Orate, a Roman-letter script is paced as English, so slow it a little if the words are Hindi.

Why are Hindi matras cut off or hard to read on a teleprompter?

Devanagari stacks vowel signs above and below the letters, so it needs more height than English at the same point size. Raise the text size and keep a little more space between lines; around 40 points is a sensible start on a phone.