Runtime before you walk on
Pacing gives you the actual length at your reading speed. A twenty minute slot with a twenty six minute script is a problem best discovered in a hotel room rather than on stage.
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Explore apps Zen Teleprompter · reviewed
A teleprompter for keynote speakers who cannot overrun
A conference talk has one hard constraint that a video does not: you cannot edit it afterwards and you cannot run over. Zen Teleprompter is useful here mostly because it tells you the truth about length before you are standing up.
the situation
The three things that go wrong on stage
None of them are about nerves, and all of them are solvable the week before.
- You do not know the real runtime until you are already delivering it, and a twenty minute slot is not a suggestion.
- The venue wifi is unusable, and the script lives in a document that needs a network to open.
- The talk contains something unannounced, and it has been sitting in a cloud document shared by link since the first draft.
- You lose your place after an interruption, because the script has no visual anchors to come back to.
why this one
What helps on the day
Behaviour the app has today, not a roadmap.
It opens with no network
Scripts are on the device. Venue wifi is famously bad and it stops being your problem.
Nothing sitting on a server
An unannounced product, a set of numbers, a resignation. The script stays on your device, and optional iCloud sync rides your own Apple ID rather than a vendor account.
Cues where you need to breathe
Mark the paragraph breaks you intend to pause at, which is also where you will find your place again if you lose it.
Three run modes
A lectern read, a piece to camera and a rehearsal pass do not want the same scroll behaviour, and switching between them is the difference between practising and fighting.
Rehearse against the same thing you will use
The iPad you practise on is the iPad on the lectern. Rehearsing in a document and presenting from a prompter is how pacing goes wrong.
Be honest with yourself
Where this is the wrong tool
A prompter is not a presentation system and this one does not pretend to be.
- You need slides, presenter notes and a clicker in one place. Use Keynote and put the prompter beside it.
- The venue provides a confidence monitor fed from their own desk, which many larger ones do.
- You want someone else to scroll for you from the back of the room.
- Your talk is improvised from bullet points, in which case a prompter will make it worse rather than better.
It suits a written talk, delivered by the person who wrote it, from their own iPad.
how to start
The week before, and the morning of
Almost all of the value here is in the rehearsal, not the delivery.
Get the runtime honest first
Read it once, properly, out loud, at the speed you actually speak on stage. Not skim reading. The number this gives you is the one that decides whether the talk needs cutting.
Cut to about ninety percent of the slot
Every speaker slows down in front of an audience, and questions eat the end. A talk that fits exactly in rehearsal overruns in the room.
Mark the breaths and the beats
Where you intend to pause, and where a laugh or a slide change goes. These double as the anchors you find your place with.
Rehearse on the device you will use
Same iPad, same size, standing up, at the distance the lectern will actually put it. Sitting down at a desk teaches you the wrong pace.
Turn the network off before you go on
Nothing needs it, and a banner across the script mid sentence is the most avoidable thing on this list.
questions
Zen Teleprompter for this
Will it work if the venue wifi is bad?
Yes. Scripts are stored on the device and the app does not need a network to run one. Sync is the only part that does and it is optional.
Can it tell me how long my talk is?
Yes. Pacing gives you the runtime at your reading speed before you shoot or present, rather than after.
Is my script shared with anyone?
No. It stays on your device. Optional iCloud sync uses your own Apple ID, so there is no ZenProducts account holding a copy of an unannounced talk.
Can I use it with slides?
It does not control slides. Speakers generally run slides from a laptop or a clicker and keep the prompter on an iPad beside or below the lens.
Try it
Zen Teleprompter
Know the runtime before you walk on, and keep the talk off a server.
other situationsBuilt for
Built for
a job, not everyone.
Freelancers and solo consultants
Client logins and your own business details, on your devices, with nothing shared.
Read itPeople who travel a lot
Passports, cards and codes in a vault that opens in aeroplane mode.
Read itEmployees and contractors at companies
Your own work logins, in a vault with no console for anyone to look into.
Read itYouTubers and video creators
Mirrored glass mode, front camera takes, and no watermark on the way out.
Read it