A teleprompter for Zoom

What Zoom sends

If you are not sharing, Zoom sends your camera and your microphone, and nothing on your screen. Your script is yours alone, and the only question is where your eyes go.

If you share, you choose what. Select Share in the meeting controls. You can pick a whole screen or an application window; hold Ctrl on Windows, or Shift on a Mac, to pick more than one. On the Advanced tab there is a third choice, Portion of Screen: a green border that you can drag and resize, even during the share.

The simplest method: keep the script outside the border

Portion of Screen is the most useful tool Zoom gives anyone who reads while sharing, and it works with any prompter or a plain document. Put your script in a strip along the top of the screen, under the camera. Draw the green border around your slides, below the strip. Only what is inside the border is shared. Check it once from a second device all the same.

On a Mac, where Terera makes no promise to stay out of a share, this is the layout to use. In Terera it suits one-person mode, where the line stays near the camera. In two-people and room modes the panels sit by the faces on your call rather than in a top strip, so plan the share around them, and check. Screen-share hiding depends on the capture method your app uses, so check your sharing preview before a live call.

The method that needs nothing extra

A narrow document window at the top centre, large type, scrolled with the mouse wheel. The limits are the usual ones. One hand stays on the mouse. Your eyes stay fixed on one spot. And after you leave the script to answer a question, you find your place again yourself, with people watching.

With Terera

Terera floats over Zoom, passes your clicks through to it, and follows your voice word by word. It waits when you pause, holds your place when you go off script, and resumes when you return to the script. In a question-and-answer session, that is most of the point. If you want the script to stay put through a long discussion, Ctrl+Alt+F (Control+Option+F on a Mac) freezes it, and the same keys release it.

1. Paste your script, or import it from Word (.docx). Bold, italics and colour come with it.
2. Under Delivery, pick the microphone you use in Zoom. A headset is best: Terera does not identify speakers, so a headset keeps other people’s voices out of its microphone.
3. Set Audience: 1:1, 2 people or 3 or more. For one person, the line stays near your camera. For two people, Terera holds two fixed reading panels, and you place the Zoom window so the two faces sit near them. Two people means two listeners, not two presenters. For three or more, Script placement offers Stations, which holds the text at fixed positions, or Moving, which lets the reading window travel. Terera never sees your call; you tell it who is there.
4. Decide how you will share. In one-person mode you can use Portion of Screen and keep Terera outside the border. On Windows you can also turn on Hide from screen share under Privacy & meeting; on a Mac, current macOS lets many sharing tools capture Terera anyway. Screen-share hiding depends on the capture method your app uses, so check your sharing preview before a live call.
5. Press M in Terera for the meeting overlay, or Ctrl+Alt+M from any app (Control+Option+M on a Mac). While you share, Zoom moves its meeting controls into a floating toolbar, and with Click-through on you can use that toolbar through Terera.
6. Press Ctrl+Alt+Space (Control+Option+Return on a Mac) to start, and talk. If another app already holds those keys, Terera uses an alternative and lists the keys in use under Global hotkeys in its Shortcuts panel.

Check before a live call

When the share has reached most of the people in the meeting, Zoom shows a banner: Participants can now see your shared screen. It tells you that sharing has started, not what the share contains. On Windows, Hide from screen share asks Windows to leave Terera’s window out of captures, and Microsoft says the mechanism is not a security feature and gives no guarantee; on a Mac, current macOS lets many sharing tools capture Terera anyway. Join your own meeting from a phone with the sound off, share what you plan to share, and look. Screen-share hiding depends on the capture method your app uses, so check your sharing preview before a live call.

When something else is the better choice

• Zoom on a tablet or a phone. Terera is a desktop app for Windows and Mac.
• A recording you can retake. A plain scrolling prompter is enough when a second take is available.
• A produced webinar with a second screen and someone running the show. Put notes on the second screen, or use a prompter rig in front of the camera.
• A script in a language other than English. Terera’s voice following works in English. Its timed scroll works in any language.

Questions

Sources

• Zoom Support, “Sharing your screen or desktop on Zoom”: Share in the meeting controls; a screen or an application window; Ctrl on Windows and Shift on macOS to pick more than one; the Advanced tab and Portion of Screen, with a green border you can adjust during the share; the floating toolbar; the banner saying participants can now see your shared screen. Checked 1 October 2026.
• Microsoft Learn, “SetWindowDisplayAffinity function”: the Windows setting Terera uses to ask to be left out of captures, from Windows 10 version 2004, and its limits. Checked 1 October 2026.
• Electron documentation, BrowserWindow, setContentProtection: on macOS, apps that capture through ScreenCaptureKit capture the window anyway. Checked 1 October 2026.
• Terera’s behaviour, keys and settings: Features and Security. Checked 1 October 2026.

Related guides: a teleprompter for Microsoft Teams, reading a teleprompter without moving your eyes and Terera on a Mac. Compared with other prompters that sit over a call: Terera vs Speakflow and Terera vs Virtual Teleprompter; all of the dated comparisons. All guides.