Teleprompter
A free teleprompter in your browser: scrolling script, speed control, mirror mode and keyboard or clicker control.
Write or paste a script first.
In the prompter: Space (or a clicker's Black Screen button) plays and pauses, ↑ and ↓ change the speed by 10, Page Down and Page Up (or → and ←) move between sections, Home goes to the top and Esc exits.
Scrolls your script past a cue line at a steady speaking pace, full screen, for recording videos, giving talks or reading to camera. The speed is set in words per minute and stays true at any font size, and a target time sets the speed for you. Mirror mode, sections, stage directions and keyboard or clicker control are all here, free and without an account.
How to use it
Writing the script. A line that starts with # and a space is a section heading: the prompter shows it and can jump to it. Text in [square brackets] shows dimmed, for stage directions such as [pause] or [show slide 2]. Headings and bracketed text are not spoken, so they do not count toward the read time. The script is kept in this browser between visits.
Start opens the prompter full screen, after a 3-2-1 countdown you can turn off. With sections in the script, Start at picks where to begin. Moving the mouse or tapping shows the controls: play and pause, speed, the section list, the time gone and left, and Exit. They hide again after 2 seconds while the text scrolls. While paused, scroll or drag to move the text by hand.
- Space plays and pauses; at the end it starts again from the top.
- ↑ and ↓ change the speed by 10 words per minute.
- Page Down and Page Up, or → and ←, go to the next and previous section.
- Home goes back to the top; Esc leaves the prompter.
Display. Font size runs from 24 to 160 pixels: 64 to start with, or 40 on a phone held upright. Text width runs from 40% to 100% of the screen. Mirror horizontally for a glass teleprompter rig, whose glass reflects the screen; mirror vertically too if the screen lies upside down under the glass. The cue line, marked with a band and arrows, can sit from 10% to 60% of the way down. Speed and display settings are remembered on this device. While the text scrolls, the screen is kept from dimming where the browser allows it.
Speed and timing
The speed runs from 60 to 250 words per minute, 140 by default. Brysbaert's 2019 review of reading studies puts reading aloud at about 183 words per minute on average. Start where it feels comfortable and adjust with ↑ and ↓ as you go.
The prompter measures every line as it appears on screen and gives it the time its spoken words take at the chosen speed. A line of 10 words passes the cue line in twice the time of a line of 5, whatever the font size or width, so the speed you set is the speed you read. Headings and stage directions move at the pace of the line before them, so they add a few seconds to the run beyond the read time.
Finish in takes a time as minutes and seconds and sets the speed that reads the spoken words in that time, rounded to a whole number and kept within the range.
Read time = spoken words ÷ words per minute
Speed for a target = spoken words ÷ minutes
Examples
The read time of a short script
- Script
# Welcome Good evening and thank you for joining us. [smile] # The plan Tonight we cover three changes to the timetable.
- Speed
- 140 WPM
The two headings and [smile] are left out, which leaves 16 spoken words: a read time of 0:07.
A 300-word script in 2 minutes
With 300 spoken words, Finish in 2:00 sets the speed to 150 words per minute.
Frequently asked questions
See also
- Word & Character Counter — to count a script and see its speaking time.
- Text to Speech — to hear a script read aloud before you record it.