Zoom has no built-in teleprompter. The way to read a script in Zoom meetings is to put the words directly under your camera, sized so your eyes barely move - and to use a prompter that follows your voice, because a call, unlike a recording, keeps interrupting you. The walkthrough below uses Miracue, our free browser teleprompter, and its call mode: the script opens small and docked instead of taking over your screen, and can be pinned in a floating window that stays on top of the call itself. There is nothing to install, and set-up takes a few minutes.
Does Zoom have a built-in teleprompter?
No. People have been asking for one on Zoom's own forums for years, and it has never arrived. The Zoom Apps marketplace carries third-party prompter apps, but there is nothing native that will scroll a script for you in a live meeting.
It matters less than it sounds, because the job does not need to live inside the meeting software at all. Your camera is a fixed point at the top of your screen. Anything you can position underneath it becomes a teleprompter, and a browser window can go exactly where you put it.
How do you read a script on Zoom without looking like you are reading?
A viewer cannot see your screen. They can only see where your eyes point and how much they move. That gives you two rules.
Put the words as close to the camera as they will go. The closer the script sits to the lens, the more your reading reads as eye contact. The same script parked on a second monitor has you visibly staring off-stage, which is the single most recognisable tell on a video call.
Keep the eye travel small. The other giveaway is the sweep: eyes tracking left to right, then flicking back. A narrow window fixes this for free, because short lines mean less travel. This is why prompter text is set in a tall, narrow column rather than full-width paragraphs.
Can the script float on top of the Zoom window?
It can, and this is the part that changes how a call feels. Browser windows cannot normally keep themselves on top, which is why every guide to reading on Zoom, this one included, once ended with careful instructions about arranging two windows so they never overlap. Miracue's call mode retires the window juggling: start a script for a call and it opens small and docked instead of seizing your screen, and one press of the pin lifts it into a little floating window that stays on top of everything, the call included.
What you get is the thing that actually matters mid-meeting: the words are simply there, right under the lens, no matter what you click. Bring Zoom forward, open the chat, check a document - the script does not vanish behind any of it. Click the words to pause, click again to carry on, and your place is kept. The person on the other end sees someone holding steady eye contact and finding the right words; the work of it stays on your side of the glass.
The pin works in Chrome and Edge on a computer, and every free account includes three pinned calls, enough to feel the difference on real meetings. After that it is part of Miracue Pro, which works out at about $4 a month billed yearly, and your first year is $39. If your calls carry any weight, one meeting that lands well pays for the year.
Is there a Chrome extension for a teleprompter on Zoom?
Yes, and it takes the opposite approach to the pin. Miracue for Chrome opens the teleprompter in the browser's side panel, so the script sits beside the call rather than floating over it: the meeting in the tab, the words in a column to its right, neither covering the other. It is the same prompter and the same on-device voice follow, free with no account and no time limit, and it is one click from the Chrome Web Store.
Which one suits you comes down to where the camera is. The pin puts the words directly under the lens, for a read that has to look like eye contact. The side panel suits a desk read where the script and the meeting share the screen, with nothing to arrange. Zoom's web version, Google Meet and Teams in the browser all run in a tab, so the panel sits beside them in the same window; with the Zoom desktop app it lives in a Chrome window alongside. If you share your screen, share the tab rather than the window and the panel stays yours.
Why a fixed scroll fails on a call
Most teleprompters were designed for recording, where you are the only person speaking and nothing stops. A call is not like that. Someone asks a question, the agenda moves, you answer for ninety seconds - and a script on a fixed scroll has carried on without you and is now somewhere in next week.
This is the case where voice follow earns its keep. Miracue listens on your device, moves the script as you speak, and waits when you stop. Take the question, talk for as long as you need, and when you return to the script it is exactly where you left it. If you go back, it finds your place. The listening happens in your browser; your audio never leaves the machine.
Two practical notes so nothing surprises you mid-call. Voice follow needs the browser's microphone permission, which is separate from Zoom's - grant it once and your browser will usually remember it. And wear the headphones you probably already wear on calls: with the room's audio in your ears rather than coming out of your speakers, the microphone hears you and not your colleagues.
Is there a free teleprompter for Zoom?
Yes. Miracue is a free teleprompter that runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install, there is no time limit, and it works without an account. Call mode and voice follow are part of the free version; the floating pin is the one Pro part, and the three pinned calls included with every free account are there so you can try it on meetings that count.
Setting it up
1. Open Miracue in your browser. It is free and works without an account, so there is nothing to install - though a managed work laptop can restrict browser microphone access, which voice follow needs, so test it once before the first call.
2. Paste your script. Write it the way you talk - short sentences, contractions left in. Anything you would not say out loud on the call, change now.
3. Start it for a call. Hover the script in your library and choose the phone, or use the phone half of the Start prompter button in the editor. The prompter opens docked and compact instead of full screen, built to share a desk with Zoom. Already reading when the call starts? "On a call…" in the display settings switches over mid-session.
4. Pin it over the call. In Chrome or Edge on a computer, press the pin and the script lifts into a small floating window that stays on top of the meeting. Park it at the top centre of your screen, directly under the camera, and it will still be there whatever you click. On other browsers, keep the docked window under the camera and size it so the call does not cover it - and if Zoom is running full screen, take it back to a normal window first.
5. Set the text size from where you actually sit, not with your nose at the screen. If you cannot read it comfortably from your normal position, make it bigger. Bigger text, fewer words per line, smaller eye movements.
6. Start voice follow and forget the controls. Your hands stay free for the call, and the script keeps pace with you rather than the other way round.
Can people tell you are using a teleprompter on Zoom?
They can tell when it is done badly, and it is worth being honest about what bad looks like. The giveaways are position and length: a script off to the side pulls your whole gaze off the call, and long unbroken reading turns you into a newsreader in a meeting that expected a person.
Done properly - window under the camera, short lines, and a script you have read through twice - what the other side sees is someone unusually well prepared. Keep the scripted parts for the moments that matter. For a coach or consultant that usually means the session opening, the pricing conversation you want word-perfect, and the line that has to be said exactly. Let the rest of the call be a conversation, and let the script wait while it is.
What about a second screen or a phone?
A second monitor is the tempting option and, for the words themselves, the wrong one. It sits well off the camera axis, so every glance is visible. Put your slides or notes there - things you are allowed to be seen looking at - never the script you are speaking. The one job a second screen does brilliantly is coming up in the next section.
If you work on an external monitor with a webcam clipped to the top, nothing changes: the rule follows the physical lens, wherever it is. A teleprompter for a webcam is the same trick - dock the script window on whichever screen the camera sits on, directly beneath it.
A phone or tablet propped directly below your webcam is a different story: that is just a second little prompter in the right place. Open Miracue on it, or send the script across with a share link or QR code, and it does the same job as the docked window.
Presenting with slides
First, the mistake that actually costs people: when you share, share the slides window, never your entire screen. A shared screen shows every participant everything on it, and the pin is a real window, so it appears in a full-screen share like anything else. Pick the application window in Zoom's share dialog and glance at the preview before you confirm; the slides go to the room and the script stays yours. This is also where a second monitor earns its keep - the deck shared from one screen, the prompter under the camera on the other.
Beyond that, you rarely want every word scripted when presenting - you want the openings, the transitions and the close. Split the script into chapters, one per section of the deck, and jump straight to the one you need when the agenda moves. The bits in between stay conversation.
Does this work on Teams and Google Meet too?
Yes. Nothing here is Zoom-specific: the camera is at the top of your screen in every meeting app, and the pinned script floats over Teams and Meet exactly as it floats over Zoom. Dock or pin the script under the camera and the geometry is identical, whatever is running behind it.
Trying it
Open Miracue, paste the opening two minutes of your next call, start it for a call and pin it over whatever you are reading now. Then say it to yourself once. Whether you can hold an eyeline while reading is not something to wonder about; it is something to try before the next call, and the first three pinned calls are on us.
What is a teleprompter? covers the eyeline in more depth, and How Miracue works explains what happens to a script once you paste it in.
Written 3 September 2026 by Lumira Studio, a video production company in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. We built Miracue for our own filming days, and we spend more of our lives on calls than we would like.