How to use a teleprompter on Mac during Zoom or Google Meet calls

As close below the camera as you can. On a MacBook the camera is centred above the display — on recent MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models it sits in the notch at the top of the screen. On an iMac or a Studio Display it is centred at the top too, and most external webcams clip onto the top centre of the monitor.

• Keep the text in a narrow column, about a third of the screen wide, so your eyes barely move from side to side.
• Show two or three lines, not a full page. The line you are reading should sit just under the camera.
• Use large text and a dark background; a bright white page under the camera lights up your face and your glasses.

The further down the screen you read, the more you look like you're reading. A few centimetres under the lens reads as eye contact on the other end.

1. 1Open Stickies, paste the part of your script you need — the opening, the key points, the close — and set a large font.
2. 2Choose Window › Float on Top so the note stays above the call window.
3. 3Drag the note to the top centre of the screen, right under the camera, and resize it to two or three lines.
4. 4Join the call. Scroll the note by hand as you go, or split the script into short notes you can glance between.
5. 5Before the real call, do a test with a friend or a second account and ask what they see.

Notes, TextEdit or Pages work the same way, but they don't float above other windows, so a full-screen call can cover them. The weak spot of any note window is scrolling: you have to do it yourself, while you talk.

This matters more than where the text sits. When you share your entire screen, everything on it is shared — including your script.

• In Zoom, choose Share Screen and pick the single window or app you want to show, not the whole screen.
• In Google Meet, the browser asks what to share: pick a tab or a window, not your entire screen.
• If you have to share the entire screen, move the script to a second display or a second device first.
• Some apps can ask macOS to leave their window out of screen captures. Whether it works depends on how each meeting app captures the screen, and it can change with an update — so treat it as a bonus and test it before you rely on it.

Yes, and it keeps the script completely off your shared screen. Put the phone or tablet on a small stand directly under your webcam or just below the MacBook's camera, as close to the lens as you can, and open the script there.

A teleprompter app makes this work better than a note: the text scrolls by itself, you can make it very large, and a Bluetooth page-turner or keyboard can move it without touching the screen. One limit: if your iPhone is being used as the Mac's webcam with Continuity Camera, it can't show your script at the same time — use the Mac's camera, or another device for the script.

• Script only what has to be exact: the opening, numbers and names, and the close. Speak the rest from bullet points.
• Write the way you talk — short sentences, contractions, one idea per line.
• Read at your normal pace, around 130–160 words a minute for most people, and pause at the end of each point so others can jump in.
• Look up at the people now and then, especially when someone else is talking. A call is a conversation, not a broadcast.

Our guide on reading a script without looking like it goes deeper into delivery.

Today Talkzy is a teleprompter for iPhone and iPad. For calls on a Mac, use it as the second device: paste your script, open prompter-only mode, and place the phone or iPad right under your webcam.

• The script scrolls in large type, by following your voice (recognition runs on the device), at a fixed speed, or with a remote.
• Start a line with # for each part of the call — intro, each update, the ask — and jump between them with a Bluetooth page-turner or keyboard.
• It's a separate device, so nothing about your script ends up in what you share.

Talkzy for Mac is a slim script bar that hangs from the MacBook's notch, stays on top of the call without taking focus, follows your voice (beta) and includes a check of what others would see before you share. It is on the Mac App Store, for macOS 14 or later.