Guides

How to use a teleprompter for TikTok, Reels and Shorts

By the Cuey team. Updated 2026-11-11. 6 min read.

A teleprompter solves the hardest part of talking to camera: remembering what to say. On a phone, though, it's easy to swap one problem for another. You stop forgetting lines and start looking like you're reading them. This guide covers the setup that avoids that for vertical video.

Why reading on camera looks off

Viewers notice three things when someone reads:

• The eyes drift. If the text sits in the middle of the screen, your gaze points below the lens. On a phone held at arm's length that offset is easy to see.
• The eyes scan. Long lines make your eyes sweep left to right, which reads as reading.
• The voice goes flat. When you're chasing scrolling text, you stop stressing words and start pronouncing them.

Each of these has a fix you can set up once.

1. Put the text right under the lens

On an iPhone the front camera is at the top edge. Keep the active line of text as close to it as you can, ideally in the top third of the screen. The closer your eyes are to the lens, the more it looks like eye contact. Avoid any layout that puts the script in the bottom half.

2. Short lines, big text

Aim for five to seven words per line and a font large enough to read at arm's length without squinting. Short lines keep your eye movement small. If your app lets you, highlight only the current line and dim the rest, so you always know where you are.

3. Choose a scroll mode

There are two ways a phone teleprompter can move:

• Fixed speed. The text scrolls at a constant rate. It works, but you end up matching the machine. If you use it, start slower than you think. Natural speech for short videos sits around 150 words per minute, about two and a half words per second, but people speed up when nervous.
• Voice-follow. The app listens and moves when you do. You can pause for emphasis, laugh, or repeat a line, and the text waits. This is what makes delivery sound like talking rather than reading. See how voice-scrolling works.

4. Record in parts

Most short videos have three parts: a hook in the first seconds, the body, and a call to action. Record them as separate takes. The hook is where most retakes happen, and there's no reason to repeat a good 20-second body because the first sentence came out wrong. Keep the best take of each part and join them at the end.

5. Write the script for the ear

A teleprompter can only be as natural as the script on it. Use contractions, short sentences and one idea per line. Read it aloud once before recording and fix anything you stumble on. Our guide to reading a script naturally goes deeper.

A quick setup checklist

• Phone at eye level, arm's length away, front camera on top.
• Active line in the top third of the screen.
• Five to seven words per line, large font.
• Voice-follow on, or fixed speed set slower than feels right.
• Hook, body and call to action recorded as separate takes.
• Light in front of you, not behind.