Your Script Won't Paste Into the Teleprompter? Fix It

You copy your script, paste it into the teleprompter, and the screen looks empty. The text is almost always there. It pasted in black, onto a black background, because you started a new project instead of opening one that already had its formatting set. Paste through a plain text editor first and the problem goes away.

The same cause shows up in the other direction too: the script appears, but in the wrong font, the wrong size, or a colour you cannot read off the prompter glass. Same fix.

Why the teleprompter looks empty after you paste

Word and Google Docs do not hand over plain words. They hand over the words plus everything wrapped around them, including font, size, line spacing and colour. Paste that into a brand new teleprompter project and the project has no formatting of its own to defend, so it takes whatever arrived. Black text on a black background is the version that looks like nothing happened at all.

Which is why "it will not let me paste" is usually the wrong diagnosis. Nothing refused the paste. You just cannot see the result.

The fix, step by step

1. Open a recent teleprompter project, not a new one. A project you have used before already carries the font, size and colours you set last time, and those settings are what your pasted text will pick up.
2. Paste your script into a plain text editor first. On a Mac, that is TextEdit. On Windows, it is Notepad. This is the step that strips the formatting out.
3. Check the editor is actually in plain text mode. In TextEdit, choose Format, then Make Plain Text. Notepad is plain text already, so there is nothing to change.
4. Copy the stripped text back out. Select all, copy.
5. Paste it into your teleprompter project. It now takes the project's own font, size and colour, and you can read it.

Run it every time you load a new script. It takes a few seconds, and it is a lot cheaper than finding out once you are sitting in front of the camera.

The text pasted, but the formatting is still wrong

Then the script went into a new project rather than an existing one. Close it, open a project you have already set up, and paste the plain text version in again.

The habit worth building is keeping one working project on the machine and reusing it for every script, rather than starting fresh each time. The formatting is set once and never has to be argued with again.

Other causes, in order of likelihood

The words are there but too small to read

That is a display problem, not a paste problem. The prompter is a second monitor, so the size of everything on it is set by that monitor's resolution. Dropping the teleprompter display from 1080p to 720p enlarges the text and the on-screen controls together, which is usually a better answer than pushing the font size up inside the app.

The prompter screen is completely black, or blue

Nothing to do with your script. A completely black screen usually means the teleprompter is not getting power. A blue screen means it has power but no signal is arriving from the computer. Work through the TeleprompterMax power and connection checks before you touch the script again.

You are working in the wrong app for your computer

The Desktop Studio runs Presentation Prompter on a Mac and Imaginary Teleprompter on a Windows PC. The paste behaviour is the same in both, but the display settings are not, and a prompter set up as a mirrored display rather than an extended one will not show your script no matter how cleanly it pasted. The step-by-step setup is in the Mac guide and the Windows PC guide.

Still not working

Take a photo of the prompter screen with the script open on it and send it to office@ridgefilms.com.au, or get in touch through the contact page. One photo tells us in a glance whether the text is genuinely missing or simply invisible, which is the fork in the road that decides everything after it.

Common questions

Should I copy and paste, or type my script straight into the teleprompter?

Copy and paste. Typing a full script into the teleprompter app is slow, and you lose the version you wrote in Word or Google Docs. Paste it through a plain text editor first so the formatting does not travel with it.

I have a Mac. Which text editor should I use?

TextEdit, which is already installed. Open it, choose Format then Make Plain Text, paste your script in, then copy it back out and paste it into Presentation Prompter.

I am on a Windows laptop. What is the equivalent?

Notepad. It is plain text by default, so there is no setting to change. Paste your script in, copy it back out, and paste it into Imaginary Teleprompter.

Why will the teleprompter not let me paste at all?

It almost always did paste. Black text on a black background looks identical to an empty screen. Select all in the script window before you assume nothing happened, or paste into a project that already has its colours set.

Do I have to do this every single time?

Yes. Every fresh copy out of Word or Google Docs carries its formatting with it, so the plain text editor step runs every time you load a new script.

More on what happens when you sit down to record, from lighting and framing to running the prompter: the video recording guide.