Teleprompter for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet: reading on a call without looking like it

A teleprompter for Zoom calls solves one problem: on a laptop, the camera is a dot above the screen, and everything you might read — your notes, the meeting window, your slides — sits below it. Read from the middle of the screen and the other people on the call see the top of your eyelids. Read from just under the lens and they see eye contact. The same applies on Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and the fix is the same: get the words you are reading as close to the camera as the screen allows, and keep the column narrow.

What each meeting app has built in was checked against Zoom’s, Microsoft’s and Google’s own pages on 2 November 2026. Third-party add-ons named below were not tested by us.

Does Zoom, Teams or Meet have a teleprompter?

Not for your camera. None of the three puts a scrolling script under your webcam during a call. What they do have is presenter notes for shared slides, which help with a deck but sit wherever the notes pane sits, usually well below the lens.

Two Microsoft tools outside Teams do have a teleprompter, for recording rather than live calls. PowerPoint’s Recording Studio has a Teleprompter view that shows the current slide’s notes above the slide preview while it records your webcam, and Clipchamp’s webcam recorder has a teleprompter option in its menu for work and school accounts, with recordings up to 1080p and 30 minutes, per Microsoft’s help pages. Both are useful for a pre-recorded segment; neither helps you mid-meeting.

One more detail matters for slides on a call: university IT guides for Teams advise sharing the PowerPoint window rather than your whole screen if you want to keep presenter view to yourself, and Keynote for Mac can play a slideshow in a window with the presenter display in a separate one, for the same reason. Share the whole screen and your notes are on everyone’s.

Where the text goes: under the webcam

The angle between the line you are reading and the lens is what people on the call see. Sitting about 60 centimetres from a laptop, reading a line 3 cm below the camera puts your gaze about 3° off the lens, which reads as eye contact. A line 15 cm down, the middle of a typical laptop screen, is about 14° off, which reads as looking down.

Width matters as much as height. A line that spans the whole screen makes your eyes sweep left and right, which is just as visible as looking down. Aim for four to six words per line in a column no wider than the middle third of the screen. The longer explanation, with the same arithmetic for phones, is in why teleprompter videos still look like reading.

A browser teleprompter for Zoom, step by step

The free online teleprompter on this site runs in any browser on a Mac, PC or Chromebook, needs no install and does not touch the meeting itself: it is a window you read from.

1. Paste your script and set a speed. 150 words a minute is a natural pace to camera; on a call where people may cut in, 120 to 140 leaves room.
2. Make the browser window narrow, about a third of the screen wide, and drag it to the top centre, so the reading mark sits just under the webcam.
3. Move the meeting window aside. Shrink Zoom, Teams or Meet into the space left and right, or put it on a second monitor. You want to see faces in your peripheral vision, not in the middle of your reading line.
4. Leave the page’s camera view off. On some computers only one app can use the webcam at a time, and you want the call to have it.
5. Use the keys. Space pauses when someone asks a question; the up and down arrows change speed by ten words a minute without losing your place.

If you also need a laptop or desktop teleprompter for recordings outside calls, the options, from browser tools to dedicated apps and glass, are compared in teleprompter for Mac and PC.

A phone as the prompter, beside the webcam

On a desktop with a monitor, or when the laptop screen is full of slides and faces, a phone makes a good separate prompter. The rule does not change: it has to sit as close to the webcam as you can get it.

• Directly under the webcam is best. Clip the phone to the top edge of the monitor, under a webcam that sits on top, or on a small stand in front of the monitor’s top edge. Landscape keeps the lines short and the text close to the camera.
• Beside it is the fallback. If it has to sit to one side, keep it level with the lens and as close as the clip allows. A phone flat on the desk is the worst place it can go.
• Use headphones if the prompter listens. A voice-following prompter on the phone should hear you, not the other people on the call coming out of your speakers.

In Orate, prompter-only mode runs a script on the phone with no camera, at a speed you set or, with Follow my voice (Pro, in the free trial), following your speech: it holds where you are when you stop to answer someone, and picks up when you return to the script. Text runs from 18 to 96 points, so you can make it readable from arm’s length. Orate does not connect to Zoom, Teams or Meet, and has no remote control or Bluetooth clicker support; it is a screen you read from.

With an external webcam

An external webcam lets you put the camera where the text is, rather than the other way round.

Glass rigs need the text reversed so it reads the right way round in the reflection. The browser tool has a mirror setting for this; the Orate app has none, so use it for reading the screen directly, not behind glass. How the optics work is in why teleprompters are mirrored, and the setups for it in mirror teleprompter.

Not looking like you are reading

• Script only the parts that need it. An introduction, a pitch, a prepared answer: full text. A discussion: cues, one line per point. People read entire meetings and it shows.
• Look at the lens for the first and last line of anything you read. Those are the moments people are watching your face most closely.
• Write it the way you talk. Short sentences, contractions, numbers rounded the way you would say them. How to sound natural reading a script has the rest.
• Pause instead of chasing. If the text runs ahead, stop it, finish your thought, and carry on. A pause on a call reads as thinking; a rush reads as reading.
• Rehearse once with the call’s own preview. Start a meeting on your own, turn on recording if your plan allows, read a paragraph and watch it back. That twenty-second test shows whether your eyes give you away better than any guide can.

The general technique, on any camera, is in how to read a script while looking at the camera.

Recording a webinar intro instead

For the part of a webinar or all-hands that must be word-perfect — the welcome, the announcement, the product demo’s opening — recording it in advance is often better than reading it live. You can retake it until it is right, and on the day you play it with your screen share’s computer sound turned on, then go live for questions.

1. Keep it short. A 60- to 90-second intro at 150 words a minute is 150 to 225 words. How many words is a 3-minute speech has budgets for longer openings.
2. Record in landscape, since it will be shown in a 16:9 meeting window. A phone on a stand at eye level, facing a window, with a clip-on microphone, will usually look better than the laptop webcam you join the call with; the full setup is in a talking-head video setup with a phone.
3. Read from under the lens. In Orate, the script sits in a band right under the front camera and moves to the lens edge when you turn the phone sideways. Export is free up to 1080p with no watermark.
4. Trim the ends and test playback with sound in a meeting by yourself first.

For a first time reading from a phone, how to use a teleprompter on your phone covers distance, size and speed, and teleprompter for presentations covers talks with slides.

Questions people ask

Does Zoom have a built-in teleprompter?

No. As of 2 November 2026 we found no teleprompter in Zoom’s own help centre. Zoom’s App Marketplace lists third-party teleprompter apps, and any browser or desktop teleprompter works beside a Zoom window. The setup that matters is placement: a narrow column of text directly under the webcam, so your eyes stay close to the lens.

Does Microsoft Teams have a teleprompter?

Not for your camera in meetings, as checked on 2 November 2026. When you present slides with PowerPoint Live, Teams shows your notes in a Notes pane beside the slides. PowerPoint’s Recording Studio and Clipchamp both have a teleprompter for recording video, and Microsoft’s AppSource lists third-party teleprompter add-ons, which we have not tested.

How do I read a script on Zoom without looking like I am reading?

Put the text in a narrow window at the top centre of the screen, directly under the webcam, with four to six words per line. Move the meeting window to the sides or a second screen. Read at about 120 to 140 words a minute, pause when someone speaks, and look straight at the lens for your first and last lines.

Can I use my phone as a teleprompter for Zoom?

Yes. Run a teleprompter app on the phone in a prompter-only mode and mount it directly under or beside the webcam, level with the lens, ideally in landscape. Do not lay it flat on the desk, which makes you look down. If the prompter follows your voice, wear headphones so it hears only you.

Can I see my speaker notes in Google Meet?

Yes, when you present Google Slides as a tab in Meet: a speaker notes button in the presentation controls shows your notes to you only, per Google’s Workspace Updates announcement of January 2023. It depends on your Workspace edition, so check before the day if you use a personal Google account.