Free teleprompter or autocue iPad apps
Free iPad apps for teleprompter or autocue style prompting are available. As I’ve mentioned before in Using Teleprompter/ Autocue to camera Practice using Teleprompter/Autocue free 10 top tips for using Teleprompter What does Teleprompter or Autocue look like? the most important thing is practice, and these free apps are ideal for that.
The good news is that being free iPad apps you can just download them and try them out. In no particular order:
Prompterous (this was free when I downloaded it, but notice they charge for it now)
Just a health warning. These are no substitute for a professional prompting system operated by somebody who knows what they’re doing. Professional operators control the speed better, can find text and make changes rapidly, and have a sixth sense as to where they need to be in the script if things go awry.
Having said that if you’re on a low budget, or just want to practice these are ideal.
It’s easy to import text by cutting and pasting from a Word doc. Text can be easily edited. Font size can be increased , and you can get the traditional white text on black background.
I’ll look at each of them in more detail later, considering control of scroll speed, camera mounting and general ease of use. If you do want to camera mount the iPad there’s more kit to buy.
The importance of some of the features may depend on what you actually want to use a prompter system for. I’m considering it for the presenter to camera , but others use it for live conference presentations, lyrics for songs etc. As the technology is easily available now, no doubt there’ll be lots of other uses found for it.
But for the moment let’s be glad this feature is available free, and any budding TV presenters can practice at home using one of these apps, rather than on their first job or at a casting session.
Hi David, I am looking for an ipad app that can allow me to have auto cue and make a video with the same ipad at the same time. Do you know of one that you would recommend in particular? thanks, nishta
Hi Nishta – it’s a good idea but I don’t know of an app that would do both together. You could try mounting an iPhone or mini camera above the iPad screen though.