Reading notes on a video call without looking like it.

The usual setup is easy to recognise, whether the call is on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. The call fills most of the screen, and a notes document sits in a narrow window to the right, or on a second monitor off to the side. It feels sensible, because everything is visible at once. On the other end of the call, it looks like you keep checking something just out of frame.

Why the window beside the call is the worst spot

Three things go wrong at once with notes beside the call window.

The glance is sideways. Your webcam sits at the top of the screen, usually in the middle. A window on the right edge puts your notes as far from the lens as the screen allows, horizontally, and the piece on eye contact while reading a script explains why a sideways glance reads so much worse than a short vertical one. On a call you cannot even back away from the camera to shrink the angle: you are at your desk, at arm's length from the screen.

The faces pull you the other way. On a call there are now three places your eyes want to go: the lens, the other person's face, and your notes. With the notes at the side, those three points form a wide triangle, and you travel the whole of it every time you check a line.

The document is too big. A notes window holds a page of text. Every time you look across, you have to find your place in that page, and the search is visible. People forgive a glance. They notice a hunt.

Where your teleprompter text should sit

Since distance is fixed, position does all the work. The text belongs directly under the webcam, top centre, as close to the lens as the screen allows. What a call adds is everything around it:

• Move the other person up too. Drag the call window so their face sits near the top of the screen, under the camera. Then the face, the lens and your notes are stacked in one short vertical line instead of spread across the desk.
• Plan for the interruption. When someone cuts in mid-point, you stop looking at your notes and listen. Coming back is the risky glance, because you have to find where you were. A short line under the lens, marking the point you are on, is what makes that return quick.
• One screen for the call. If your webcam is clipped to an external monitor, put the call and the notes on that monitor too; notes on a different display than the camera defeat every other rule here. The laptop below it becomes a distraction, not a second notes surface.

You can get close to this with a narrow notes window dragged under the camera. The trouble is that it does not stay there: click into the call app and the notes fall behind it. A floating teleprompter overlay is one answer. Mirrento, a Mac app, has an overlay mode that keeps two lines of text in a small dock above your other windows, including the call. On a MacBook with a notch it always opens on the built-in screen, right under the camera, even with an external monitor connected; on other Macs it opens on the screen you are working on. You cannot move it to another monitor, so on a notched MacBook keep the call and the camera on the laptop screen. If that matches how you take calls, the 7-day trial covers a few real ones before you decide.

How much text a call can carry

Far less than you think. A recording can follow a full script because you control the pace. A call cannot, because the other person changes the pace for you. They ask a question in the middle of your second point, and a word-for-word script is suddenly useless.

So write for a call differently:

• Exact wording only where it matters. The opening sentence, the price, the one claim you must phrase carefully, the closing ask. Those you can read.
• Prompts for everything else. A few words per point, enough to remind you what comes next, not enough to read aloud. If you find yourself reading a prompt, it is too long.
• Short lines. Two short lines in view at a time is plenty. You should be able to take a whole line in without your eyes travelling along it.

Reading full sentences on a call has a second cost beyond the eyes: it flattens your timing, and people hear it. The causes are the same as on a recording, and why reading makes you sound like you are reading covers them in detail. On a call the stakes are higher, because the listener can reply, and a reply to a recited paragraph is usually a polite one.

Before you share your screen

Any notes on your screen, in a document, a sticky note or an overlay, are part of your screen. If you share the whole screen, they can show up in the share, and so can anything you would rather the other person did not read.

• Share a window, not the screen. Zoom, Meet and Teams all let you share a single window or tab instead of the entire display. Make that your default the moment you keep notes open on calls.
• Check the preview. Look at what the share preview shows before you start talking, not after someone mentions it.

And remember it is still reading. A well-placed line of text shrinks the glance. It does not make you sound like you are thinking if you are reciting, so keep the notes to prompts and the few sentences that must be exact.