Very basic, no-cost laptop teleprompter

John_Cline wrote on 5/30/2012, 5:29 PM
I just ran across this idea in another forum and thought someone might find this useful if you need a quick and dirty teleprompter.
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How To Make a Laptop Teleprompter

Here's how to create a scrolling marquee teleprompter on your laptop:

1. Write your script in a word processor, like Microsoft Word.

2. Open Notepad and cut and paste the following HTML code, then cut and paste your text between the [ ] within the HTML code:

<font size="15"><marquee bgcolor="white" font face="Helvetica" color="black" loop="-1" scrollamount="20" width="60%">[Vegas Pro 11 provides an efficient, intuitive and integrated content creation environment for video and broadcast professionals. Now featuring GPU-accelerated performance with OpenCL-supported devices, Vegas Pro 11 powers through video processing and rendering tasks with ease.]</marquee>

(You can control the scroll speed by changing the "scrollamount" value, lower values = slower, higher values = faster.)

3. Save it as an HTML page (such as "teleprompter.html") the quotes around the filename are important, without them, Notepad will add ".txt" to the filename.

To launch it, just double-click on the file and it will load into your default browser. It will scroll from right to left. To restart it, just hit the refresh button in your browser. You will also need to hit the refresh button when you make changes since the browser will have likely cached a copy.

You can view an example here:

http://www.johncline.com/teleprompter.html

Comments

paul_w wrote on 5/30/2012, 5:40 PM
That is a great idea.

i modified the html to scroll up:

<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="up" bgcolor="white" font face="Helvetica" color="black" loop="-1" scrollamount="5" width="30%">

Thanks John. very nice.

Paul.
Duncan H wrote on 5/30/2012, 6:11 PM
Thanks John,

I've been using a (I think from memory) free iPad app (iPrompt pro) developed specifically for use as a teleprompt. Even the free version works fine - lots of flexibility re font size, format, scroll speed etc.

Just another free (or at most very cheap) app that works well and has proved very useful for me in filming.

Of course, managing the eye line of the presenter is a challenge, although with the iPad it is possible to hold it right behind the camera and the results are fine.

Regards,

Duncan
Zeitgeist wrote on 5/30/2012, 6:14 PM
How awesome. Thanks for teaching & sharing. I agree, wholeheartedly. Vegas has streamlined my workflow like never before.
ushere wrote on 5/30/2012, 7:45 PM
alternatively:

http://www.cueprompter.com/
John_Cline wrote on 5/30/2012, 7:52 PM
Nice alternative, requires Internet access, but usually not a problem.
Dan Sherman wrote on 5/30/2012, 9:34 PM
Have used Cuepromter under the lens with success, shamelessly and for the right price.
DadOZach wrote on 8/3/2015, 2:50 PM
Very simple, very cool. I actually have teleprompter glass, so is there an HTML command to reverse the text so it can be read as a reflection?