Using a teleprompter on Zoom, Teams and Google Meet

Why a second monitor makes it worse

The instinct is to put the script on a second screen. It is the worst option available. A sideways glance is the most visible eye movement there is, and on a call you are framed tightly enough that the audience sees every one of them. Two minutes in, you look like you are reading from something, because you are.

The alternative is an overlay: a transparent window that floats on top of the meeting, in the same part of the screen you are already looking at.

Set up a transparent overlay

1. Open your prompter in see-through mode so the meeting window stays visible underneath it.
2. Drag it to sit immediately below the webcam, not centred on the screen.
3. Make it narrow. A column roughly a third of the screen wide keeps your eyes from tracking left to right.
4. Set the text one size larger than you think you need, then step back from the desk.
5. Turn scrolling down. On a call you want to glance, not read continuously.

Put the single most important line, the one you must not fluff, at the very top of the window. That is the part of the screen closest to the lens.

Does screen sharing show your script?

This is the question that stops most people trying it, and the answer depends on what you share. Share a single window or a single application and the overlay is not part of that window, so it is not captured. Share your entire screen and anything sitting on top of it goes out with everything else.

• Safe: sharing one window, one app, or one browser tab.
• Not safe: sharing a whole display while the overlay sits on it.
• Safest: keep the overlay on a different display from the one you share, if you have two.

Rehearse the share once before the real call. Every platform handles window capture slightly differently, and a ten second test removes the worry entirely.

Write for a call, not for a camera

A scripted video can be read start to finish. A call cannot, because somebody will interrupt you and you have to find your place again. Write in fragments you can re-enter: short bulleted beats rather than continuous prose, with the exact wording spelled out only where it matters, such as a price, a name or a legal line.

If you are presenting the same material repeatedly, the queue is worth setting up: several short scripts lined up in order so each segment starts clean instead of scrolling through the previous one.

One habit worth building

Read the first sentence of any answer from memory, then glance. Starting a reply while looking at the lens buys you the eye contact that matters, and by the time you need the script you have already established that you are talking to the person, not to the text.