How to Use a Teleprompter When You Wear Glasses

Many people who read from a teleprompter wear glasses, and most of them discover the same two problems: the prompter or the lights reflect in the lenses, and the text is the wrong size for their prescription. Both are fixable in a few minutes.

Find where the glare comes from

Look at a test recording and identify each reflection:

• A bright rectangle is usually the prompter screen.
• A round or square bright spot is a light or ring light.
• A large pale patch is often a window.

Each has a different fix, so it helps to know which one you are fighting.

Fix prompter reflections

• Turn the screen brightness down. A prompter only needs to be bright enough to read. Lower brightness reflects less.
• Use light text on a dark background. A mostly dark screen throws far less reflection than a white page.
• Move the prompter slightly lower so its reflection falls below the lenses.

Fix light reflections

• Raise your lights so they hit the lenses at a steeper angle, sending the reflection down rather than into the camera.
• Move lights to the side rather than straight in front.
• Avoid a ring light directly behind the camera if you wear glasses; it creates a bright circle in each lens.

Tilt the glasses slightly

Lifting the arms of your glasses a few millimetres above your ears tilts the lenses downward. It is invisible on camera and often removes reflections entirely. Some presenters keep a pair with slightly loosened arms just for recording.

Set the font for your prescription

If you wear varifocals or reading glasses, the text needs to sit in the part of your lens where you see clearly. Experiment with:

• Font size, larger than you think.
• Distance from your face.
• Line width, narrower so your eyes move less.

Our guide to teleprompter font size and distance gives starting points. In Cue, font size, line height and text width are adjustable, and the onboarding includes a readability check so you can tune them before you record.

Keep eye contact natural

Glasses make eye movement more visible, because the frames draw attention to your eyes. Keep the text close to the lens and use short lines, so your eyes travel less. See teleprompter eye contact.

Consider anti-reflective lenses

If you record often, anti-reflective coatings on your next pair of glasses are worth the cost. They reduce glare from every source, not just the prompter.

Test before every session

Lights get moved, windows change through the day, and a reflection that was not there yesterday appears today. A ten-second test recording, watched back, catches it. For the full recording setup, see what to wear on camera and ring light vs window light.