How to use a teleprompter on Zoom without your audience seeing it

A teleprompter on Zoom is useful for webinars, pitches, training sessions, all-hands updates and any call where you want to hit your points without losing your place. The tricky part isn't the reading. It's reading in a way that keeps your eyes near the camera and keeps the script out of your screen share.

Your options for a teleprompter on Zoom

There are four common setups. Each one works, but they differ a lot in where your eyes go and what your audience can see.

Second monitor. Easy to set up, and the text can be large. But your camera is on the other screen, so each line you read shows up as a glance away. It's fine for a quick reference, not for reading a script.

Phone or tablet. Clip it just under your webcam and the angle can be good. The downsides are small text, another device to charge and silence, and scrolling it without reaching for it on camera.

Browser prompter. Free and quick to start. But it's just a tab, so if you share your whole screen, your audience sees your script. It also sits wherever the browser window is, which is rarely right under the camera.

Screen-share-safe overlay. A small prompter window that sits under your webcam and uses Windows' capture exclusion so it doesn't appear in your share. This is the setup that solves both problems at once.

Why many prompters show up when you share your screen

When you share your entire screen in Zoom, it captures the whole display, including every window on top of it. To Zoom, a teleprompter is just another window, so it gets sent to everyone along with your slides.

Sharing a single window instead of the whole screen usually keeps other windows out, and it's a reasonable fallback. The catch is that it's easy to forget. Switch to sharing your desktop to show a file, and your script is on display.

The more reliable fix is built into Windows. Since Windows 10 version 2004, an app can mark its own window as excluded from screen capture. Apps that capture the screen the standard Windows way, which is nearly all of them, then leave that window out. You see it on your monitor. Your audience sees whatever is behind it. Many teleprompter apps simply don't use this feature. There's more on how it works on the invisible teleprompter for screen sharing page.

How to use a teleprompter on Zoom with Lenslines

Lenslines is a small Windows teleprompter built for this. It shows your script in a black notch right under your webcam and hides it from screen sharing. It's a $9.99 one-time purchase, coming soon to the Microsoft Store. Here's how a call works:

1. Add your script. Paste it into the library, or drag in a .txt, .md or .rtf file. Pasting from Word or Google Docs cleans up the formatting. Start each section heading with # to turn it into a cue.
2. Open the prompter. Join your Zoom call, then press Ctrl+Alt+P. The notch springs open at the top center of the screen your webcam is on.
3. Turn on voice scrolling. Press Ctrl+Alt+V. The text moves while you speak and pauses when you pause. It reacts to the sound of your voice, not to individual words, so if you go off script, pause it until you're back.
4. Set the sensitivity. In settings, use the live level meter to set microphone sensitivity, and adjust the pause after silence so a short breath doesn't stop the text. A glowing voice beam in the notch shows it's hearing you.
5. Hover to pause. Point at the prompter when someone asks a question, and move the pointer away to carry on. Click pause if you need longer.
6. Share your screen as normal. The prompter stays on your monitor and out of the share.
7. Jump between cues. If the conversation goes off script, press Ctrl+Alt+PgDn or Ctrl+Alt+PgUp to move to the next or previous cue, or pick one from the cue list in the notch.
8. Tuck it away. Press Ctrl+Alt+P again when you're done.

Clicking the prompter doesn't take focus away from Zoom, so your meeting window stays active while you scroll or pause. The same steps work in Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

Tips for webinars, pitches and recordings

• Script the talk, not the Q&A. Use a full script for your prepared section, then switch to a few bullet points under cue headings for questions.
• Use cues as a safety net. A # cue for each section means you can recover in a second if you lose your place or skip a slide.
• Record with confidence. If your prompter is hidden from screen capture, it stays out of your shared screen in a Zoom recording, too.
• Keep your slides on the same screen. Present from the monitor your webcam sits on, so your slides, your audience and your script are all near the lens.

A quick pre-call checklist

• Script loaded and checked. Read it aloud once. Add a cue for each section so you can jump if needed.
• Prompter under the camera. Open it and confirm it sits on the screen with your webcam. If you moved it, drag it back to the center.
• Readable size. You should read comfortably from your normal seat without leaning in.
• Speed or voice set. Pick a speed you can follow, or test voice scrolling with a few sentences.
• Screen share tested. Join a test meeting from a second device, share your screen, and confirm the prompter doesn't appear on the other end.
• Countdown on. A 3- or 5-second countdown gives you a moment to settle before the text starts moving.
• Notifications off. Turn on Do Not Disturb or Focus Assist in Windows so pop-ups don't cover your script or your slides.
• Call window near the top. Place the Zoom window near the camera too, so looking at people and reading your notes both stay close to the lens.

Make it sound like you, not a script

A prompter solves where to look. How you sound is the other half. Write the way you talk, keep lines short, mark your pauses, and run the script out loud once before the call. For the camera side, see how to keep eye contact on video calls. For delivery, the guide to reading a script without sounding robotic covers speed, pauses and rehearsal.