Installation. Installing Tele-Prompt follows normal Windows practice, but I have covered it here for the sake of completeness. The software is available on CD, but most people purchase the software as a digital file download. In this format you will receive the software in the form of a password protected ZIP archive. The e-mail you will receive automatically after purchase will contain your download link and your Licence Key.

Using a utility such as Winzip, extract the contents of the ZIP file to a convenient location on your hard drive. I suggest you make a temporary folder on your desktop for this. Having done so, double click on the file called Tele-Prompt Setup.exe and you will see the screen below. From this you can access a “Getting Started” document, a complete Help file in Adobe PDF format, the members area on line and the software installation. Follow the instructions for each stage and enter your Licence Key into the boxes when requested as shown below.

 PLEASE NOTE Tele-Prompt needs to be activated during the installation process and you must be online to allow the software to do this: it takes only a moment.

Tele-Prompt’s opening installation screen provides access to various resources in addition to installing the software

Enter your Licence details; check the Licence letters and numerals carefully

 Getting Started. Whe you first start Tele-Prompt or assuming you choose to run at its default configuration, you will see the screen below. However, you can customise the settings and appearance of Tele-Prompt's interface. For example in the teleprompter scrolling text area, you can choose a background colour, text font, font size and colour, along with a default scrolling speed for your scripts. You can also set various other parameters within the audio recorder.

Under the Tools menu you can choose which individual palettes you wish to display. You can then further customise the layout as required. In video work for example, where the audio is recorded to the camera, you might not need to use the built in Podcast Recorder. Simply uncheck those you wish to hide to make a custom palette layout.

You can run Tele-Prompt at its default resolution, or alternatively, drag it out to completely fill your computer screen. This is perfectly acceptable for purely audio recording, but for video work, with a wide scrolling text area, you risk  viewers being able to see your talent's eyes moving from left to right as they read the script!

Reducing the width of Tele-Prompt's screen to keep your talent's eyes focussed into a narrow area will help maintain the illusion of direct eye contact with the viewer.

Tele-Prompt running full screen at 1280 x 1024 pixels with only two control panels visible

 Configuring the teleprompter: All the teleprompter settings and controls are contained within the main control panel situated at the bottom of the screen. Here you control the teleprompter, set the colour of the screen, colour, size and font to be used, along with the speed at which your script will scroll within the screen area.

Default settings are adjusted in the Teleprompter Control Panel

The first task when setting up Tele-Prompt is to choose a suitable background colour for the scrolling text area. Traditional teleprompters use a simple black and white display, but you can choose from all the standard range of Windows colours for your background. Select your colour from the list as shown below. The default colour scheme is white text on a blue background.

Choosing and setting the background colour of the scrolling area in Tele-Prompt

Having chosen your background scrolling area colour, move on to choose your font, its size and colour. You can choose any installed Windows font. However, be particularly careful about this and choose one that is easy to read, particularly at a distance. The default is Verdana, a font specifically designed to be easily read on screen.

Choosing and setting the font size in Tele-Prompt

Your default scrolling speed will depend upon the size of the font you have chosen. It will also depend upon the content and subject style of your script. Recording audio for a fast paced 30 seconds commercial for example, will require a completely different speaking speed and style from that needed when recording audio for a book at bedtime or relaxing meditation CD!

Scroll speed can be adjusted via the sliding bar or the numeric display

You can adjust the speed of the scrolling text using either the sliding bar or the numeric display. Click on the slider and you can use the left and right arrows on your keyboard to adjust the speed up or down. The same applies for the numeric display; you can adjust the scroll speed via the keyboard up and down arrow keys. Furthermore, scroll speed can also be adjusted using the keyboard short cuts. Use the Esc key to stop scrolling, F1 to drop the peed one number on the display; F2 will increase the scroll speed by a similar amount. This allows fine tuning scroll speed during the course of your presentation.

The scroll speed scale runs from zero to 100 and a setting of around 60 - 70 on this scale is a good starting point, using a font size of around 38 point. Although you set a default scroll speed here, this speed can be adjusted later as required, even whilst the text is scrolling.

If you wish to use the larger fonts, it pays to run Tele-Prompt at its default screen resolution or even change to 800 x 600 pixels to ensure sufficient speed and smooth scrolling. Remember using a high screen resolution and large fonts is largely counter productive; it simply requires greater computing power to scroll at sufficient speed and maintain smoothness. 

 Controller the teleprompter. You can use the Open button in the teleprompter panel to load your script into Tele-Prompt, copy and paste from another document, or type directly into the teleprompter area. You can make amendments to the script if required and then save this in the normal way using the Save button.

Whichever method you choose, once you have your text on screen, click anywhere in the scrolling area and insert a few carriage returns at the beginning of the document. This will bring the first line down a little and allow you time to read these first few lines before they scroll off the top of the screen! And if you are using Tele-Prompt for video work, also add carriage returns at the end of your script. This will ensure the text scrolls completely off the screen when you reach the end and allow your talent to maintain their line of sight towards the top of the screen throughout the entire script.

Insert carriage returns at the beginning of your script to allow sufficient time
for the first few lines to be read before they scroll off screen!

Simple Start and Stop buttons control your scrolling script in the teleprompter screen area and the scroll speed can be adjusted as required using the adjacent slider or numeric display.

However, for added flexibility and ease of use, particularly when using Tele-Prompt on a laptop or auxiliary screen situated some distance away from the talent, you can control your text by simply pressing certain keys on the keyboard. This makes it easy to adjust the scroll speed of your script whilst actually reading it! The scroll speed scale is very sensitive and allowing for extremely small adjustments to the text scrolling speed. We suggest you make your initial adjustments using the slider and then fine tune the speed with the numeric display or keyboard control. As a guide, normal speech works out at about 125 words per minute.

Your scrolling script can be stopped and started by pressing the Esc key.
And its scroll speed can be finely adjusted via the F1 and F2 keys

The USB foot control pedals emulate the Esc, F1 and F2 keyboard strokes shown here to provide complete remote hands free operation!

We have provided a selection of preset industry standard audio recording settings that work well in most situations. However, unless you have a good reason for not doing so, you should always choose a high quality recording mode such as DAT quality - 48,000 hz or CD quality - 44,100 hz, since it is much better to make a high quality original WAV file and then resample that down to say mp3 format, rather than compromise your audio quality at the actual recording stage.

Other features of the recorder include an audio level meter to help you adjust the input level of your microphone to get the best quality recording, an LCD display to indicate when audio is being recorded and an elapsed time counter to show you the precise length of your recording.

One of the secrets to getting good audio is to pay careful attention to the input level or gain of your microphone. For optimum quality you should aim to have the level meter just going into the bottom of the red area of the level meter during the loudest parts of your recording. It’s best to make a short test recording and adjust the microphone input level accordingly.

There is also a teleprompter/audio sync button. This last feature synconises your scrolling script and the audio recorder, so that merely pressing the pause button in the recorder, the single pedal or central pedal on the USB foot pedals will immediately also pause the scrolling text in the teleprompter. This makes Tele-Prompt an invaluable tool for making professional voice overs or Podcasts. Just press the button again to continue scrolling and recording!

Once you have made your recording, you can save the audio file on your computer in the normal way A sample voice over script is supplied with Tele-Prompt to help you get started and familiarise yourself with both reading scripts and recording them.

 Audio settings in Windows XP. Before using Tele-Prompt's Recorder, you need to ensure the correct audio input and output devices are being used by your Windows operating system. In Windows XP you can do this by going to the Sounds and Audio Devices folder within the Windows Control Panel. Click on the Audio tab and, using the drop down options, ensure that the correct audio components are being shown for sound playback and sound recording.

In the case illustrated below when recording a Podcast, a high quality USB Plantronics headset with an integral boom microphone has been chosen as the audio device for both voice recording and audio playback. Once you have the correct components displayed in the audio tab, be sure to click “Apply” before moving on to check the settings in the next tab; Voice. Once they are correct, again click “Apply” to ensure the settings actually become effective.

Ensure you have the correct audio hardware settings in Windows XP

This is important if you have a number of audio components connected to your computer, particularly one of the latest external USB microphones or external soundcards. Configuring one of these can be a little confusing at first, since even if you are using a USB microphone, as far as your computer is concerned, its input will be classed as a "WAV in" signal and not a "Microphone in" input. You therefore need to adjust the input volume of the audio signal using the WAV slider on the Windows mixer.

Adjust USB audio input and output with the WAV slider in Windows XP

 Audio settings under Windows Vista. Configuring audio has changed somewhat in Windows Vista and you'll now find the settings in Control Panel under the "Sounds" category.  There are far more options now than were available under Windows XP, but things are still pretty simple.

Opening the Sound folder you'll see the window below, the first tab being for configuring sound playback on your computer. In the case illustrated below, a professional quality Roland Edirol UA-25 USB sound card is being used. Since sound monitoring will be carried out via headphones attached to the UA-25 this has been chosen as the audio device for both voice recording and audio playback. The green tick indicates this is the chosen audio playback device rather than the computer speakers.

When it comes to the Recording tab, you may find that your audio recording device does not appear in the list of available devices! If that's the case do not despair; right click anywhere on this tab and an option will appear allowing you to display disconnected devices. Your hidden device should now appear and be available as a recording device option.

Finally click the "Advanced" tab of the audio "In" section and you'll be able to set the audio recording quality; although the settings here will again be governed by the capability of your sound card.

 Reading your first script. With all the basic settings configured, you can then establish and set up your default scroll speed and recording settings. Tele-Prompt will remember these so they are automatically loaded each time you use the software. A sample script is provided with Tele-Prompt, but you can load your own, or type directly into the teleprompter screen area.

W ith your test script in place, click anywhere within the script area and then either press the Start button or the Esc key on your keyboard and your text will immediately start scrolling upwards and off the screen. Read your script and adjust the scrolling speed using the horizontal slider, the left and right arrows on your keyboard, or using the numbers in the small box to the left of the slider. You can also adjust scroll speed via the F1 and F2 keys on your keyboard and the USB foot pedal control units. Make your initial adjustments using the slider and then fine tune the speed with the numeric display. As a guide, normal speech works out at about 125 words per minute.adjust the scrolling speed so that your eyes or that of your talent, remain looking roughly at the same place on screen.

Note: Be sure to add some carriage returns at the beginning of your script. This will ensure you have sufficient time to read the first few lines before they scroll off the top of the screen! And if you are using Tele-Prompt for video work, be sure to add a few carriage returns at the end of your script too. This will ensure the text scrolls completely off the top of your screen when you reach the end of the script; it also allows your talent to maintain their line of sight towards the top of the screen throughout reading the entire script.

The green marker arrow on the left of the display helps the presenter maintain a consistent reading area on the screen. And it should be adjusted to a position between midway and the top of the scrolling area. In video work, with the screen mounted directly below the camera lens, the closer the text can be read to the top of the screen, the closer the presenter’s eyes will be to the centre of the video camera lens above. And this will help the illusion of having real personal eye contact between them and the viewer of your production.

Note: Be sure to click inside the teleprompter screen area to activate the keyboard short cuts. You need to do this to tell Tele-Prompt that these keys should be used for controlling scroll speed rather than as normal keyboard keys.

Tele-Prompt’s USB foot pedals provide completely hands free operation!