Mirror teleprompter: when to flip the text, and how to do it

Mirror teleprompter text is a setting, not a kind of teleprompter: any prompter that will be read through beam-splitter glass needs it, and any prompter read straight off a screen must not have it. This is the practical half of the subject — when to switch it on, which flip you need, how to do it in the tools people actually use, and how to put a basic rig together. The optics behind it, and what 70/30 glass means, are in how a teleprompter works and why the text is mirrored.

What mirror mode does

Mirror mode draws the whole script reversed left to right. On the screen it looks wrong — letters backwards, lines starting on the right. Reflected once in the glass, it reads normally. That is the whole job.

It is not the same as right-to-left text. Arabic and Hebrew already run right to left; a correct mirror flips the rendered image and leaves the reading direction alone, so a Hebrew script mirrored for glass reads correctly in the reflection. An app that fakes mirroring by switching layout direction gets this wrong, and you will see it the first time you load a right-to-left script.

When you need a mirror teleprompter, and when you do not

The rule is one line: glass between you and the text, mirror on; nothing between you and the text, mirror off. In practice that maps to setups like this:

Most people searching for a mirror teleprompter app are in one of two places: they have bought a glass rig and the text is backwards, or the text in their phone app is backwards and they have no rig at all. In the second case, mirror is switched on by mistake — turn it off. Reading straight off the phone is covered in how to use a teleprompter on your phone.

Horizontal or vertical flip?

A single reflection reverses the text along one axis. Which axis depends on which way round the display lies under the glass, and that is why some prompter software offers a vertical flip as well as the usual horizontal one. You do not need to work it out from the geometry. Put the display in the rig, stand where you will stand, look at the glass, and match what you see:

The reason a rotation can stand in for a vertical flip: turning a display 180 degrees is the same as flipping it both horizontally and vertically. So “rotate, then flip horizontally” equals one vertical flip. That is geometry, not a rule of thumb, and it means a prompter with only a horizontal mirror works in any rig where you can turn the display round. A vertical flip earns its place when you cannot — a monitor bolted into a hood, or a tablet whose charging cable only fits one way.

If the text is still backwards after every rotation, the problem is the mirror setting, not the display. Rotation never undoes a reflection.

How to mirror teleprompter text

In the free online teleprompter

The online teleprompter on this site runs in any current browser on a laptop, tablet or phone, which makes it a free mirror teleprompter for whatever device is lying under your glass:

1. Open the page on the device that will sit in the rig and paste your script.
2. Tick Mirror, for teleprompter glass before you start, or press the Mirror button while it runs. With a keyboard, M toggles it.
3. Press Start. On a laptop or tablet-width screen it goes to full screen; on a phone it fills the column. F toggles full screen and Esc leaves it.
4. Set the speed in words a minute before you walk to your mark. The arrow keys change it by ten while it runs, and Space pauses.

The mirror is horizontal only. For the upside-down case in the table above, rotate the device in the tray. The page remembers the mirror setting in that browser, so a rig device stays set up between sessions. Nothing is uploaded: the script stays in the browser’s own storage. And because the mirror flips the rendered text rather than its direction, right-to-left scripts read correctly in the glass.

In the Orate app

The Orate apps for iPhone, iPad and Android do not have a mirror setting. They are built for the no-glass case: the script sits in a band directly under the front camera, so you read the screen itself with your eyes a few millimetres from the lens. An earlier version had a mirror switch; it was removed in September 2026 because a phone recording on its own front camera never needs one. If you have a rig, put the browser prompter on the display under the glass and record with whatever camera sits behind it — including a phone on its back camera.

In other prompter apps

The control goes by several names: Mirror, Flip, Flip horizontal, Reverse or Mirror text, usually in the display or appearance settings rather than next to the speed. Two things are worth checking once you find it:

• Whether there is a vertical flip too, if your display cannot be rotated in the rig.
• Whether it mirrors the camera preview or the text. A prompter that also records may have a separate setting for the selfie preview. That one changes nothing in the glass.

Dedicated prompter monitors often have a reverse or mirror switch in their own menu, which flips whatever is plugged in. If yours does, use either the monitor’s switch or the software’s, not both — two flips cancel out.

A basic mirror teleprompter rig

Every glass prompter has the same four parts, from a broadcast unit to a kit for a phone:

• Beam-splitter glass, coated so one face reflects part of the light and the other reflects almost none. A household mirror sends nothing to the camera, and plain or tinted glass shows every line twice.
• A display tray holding the phone, tablet or monitor flat, face up, under the glass.
• A mount that puts the camera lens behind the glass, centred on it.
• A hood, usually black fabric, closing the gap between lens and glass so light from behind the camera does not reflect into the shot.

Assembly, in the order that avoids redoing it:

1. Mount the camera and frame the shot first, with the glass in place. The glass can show its edge or the hood if the lens is too wide or too far back.
2. Set the glass at about 45 degrees, coated side towards the display; the kit’s instructions say which side that is.
3. Lay the display in the tray, brightness at maximum, auto-lock off or set long enough to outlast a take.
4. Load the script with mirror on, stand on your mark, and use the table above to fix the orientation.
5. Check the shot for reflections: a bright window or lamp behind the camera will show up in the glass.

Is a rig worth it for phone video? For short vertical clips, usually not: a good phone prompter with the text under the front camera is close enough, and far quicker. For long horizontal recordings on a better camera, often yes. The YouTube-shaped version of that decision is in teleprompter for YouTube videos, and the broader comparison of reading-and-recording options is in teleprompter with camera.

Reading from glass: size, speed, light

Reading a reflection is harder than reading a screen. A typical 70/30 glass passes only about 30% of the display’s brightness to you, and you are usually a metre or more away rather than an arm’s length.

• Text larger than feels right. Set it standing on your mark, not leaning over the tray. Four to six words a line is still the target.
• A dark background, light text. The reflection of black is nothing, so dark backgrounds leave only the words in the glass.
• Shade the glass. Light falling on the glass from in front of it, especially sun, washes out the reflection.
• Speed set before you start. You cannot reach the device mid-take in a rig. Find your rate with a 20-second read, as in the best teleprompter speed, and set it slightly slow. With the browser prompter on a laptop or a tablet with a paired keyboard, the keyboard shortcuts let you pause or change pace from where you stand.

The glass fixes the eye line, but not reading in a flat voice; how to sound natural reading a script is the other half.

Questions people ask

What is a mirror teleprompter?

It is a teleprompter that displays the script flipped left to right, because the speaker reads it as a reflection in angled beam-splitter glass in front of the camera lens. The reflection reverses the text a second time, so it reads normally to the speaker while the camera looks straight through the glass.

Do I need to mirror the text on a phone teleprompter?

Only if the phone is lying under beam-splitter glass in a rig. If you are reading the phone screen directly, next to its own front camera, nothing is reflecting the text and mirror mode must be off. Backwards text in a phone app with no rig almost always means mirror was switched on by mistake.

How do I mirror text for a teleprompter for free?

Open a browser teleprompter that has a mirror option on the device under the glass. The free online teleprompter at orateapp.co/tools/online-teleprompter has a Mirror box, a Mirror button while it runs and the M key, works on laptops, tablets and phones, and needs no sign-up. It mirrors horizontally; rotate the device if the text appears upside down.

Should a teleprompter be flipped horizontally or vertically?

Horizontally in most rigs. Look at the glass from where you will stand: if the text is the right way up but backwards, flip horizontally. If it is upside down with words running left to right, flip vertically or rotate the display 180 degrees and flip horizontally, which comes to the same thing. If it is upside down and right to left, just rotate the display.

Can I use a normal mirror or plain glass for a teleprompter?

No. A normal mirror reflects all the light and lets none through, so the camera behind it sees nothing. Plain glass reflects too little to read comfortably and reflects from both faces, so every line appears twice. Teleprompter glass is coated so that one face reflects a set share of the light and the other almost none.