How to read a teleprompter with glasses

By the Telepromptia team · Updated November 3, 2026 · 6 min read

Glasses make a teleprompter setup harder in two ways. The lenses can mirror bright things in front of you, including the phone itself, and many lenses are sharp only in one small zone, so you end up nodding to read. Both problems are fixable with a few small changes to light, distance and text settings. This guide goes through them in the order that saves the most time.

Key takeaways

• Glare comes from light in front of you, and the phone's own screen counts. Move the lights before you change anything else.
• Record a ten-second test clip and look at your lenses at full size. The small preview hides reflections.
• Make the text big enough that you do not have to tilt your head to find the sharp part of your lenses.
• Keep the prompter background dark and show only one or two lines, so less light bounces back at the camera.
• If you can read the screen at the tripod distance without glasses, try taking them off for the take.

Why glasses cause trouble

A lens is curved glass, and glass reflects. Light that hits it at an angle leaves at the same angle, like a ball off a wall. If a window, a ring light or a bright screen sits right in front of you, the reflection goes straight back into the camera. That is the glare you see in the recording.

The second problem is focus. Progressive and bifocal lenses are sharp in different zones for different distances. A phone on a tripod is neither a book in your lap nor a sign across the street, so you may find yourself lifting or dropping your chin to read. On camera that looks like nodding. It also pulls your eyes away from the lens.

Step 1: Fix the glare

Move the light, not your face

Put your main light above eye level and to one side, starting at about 45 degrees from the camera and adjusting from there. It still lights your face, but the reflection bounces away from the lens instead of back into it. A window with the curtain half drawn works well. A small, hard light directly in front of you is the worst case, because it makes a sharp white dot in each lens.

Tilt the frames

A few degrees change where the reflection goes. Slide the glasses slightly down the nose, or bend the arms so the lenses face a little downward. Change one thing at a time, because a fix for one reflection can create another.

Cut the phone's own light

The prompter screen is a light source close to your face. In Telepromptia's reading settings you can change the text color, the number of lines and how dark the background is. Choose a dark background, and if the text itself shows up in your lenses, try Ivory instead of pure white. Showing one or two lines under the camera lights a much smaller area than a full screen of text, and it keeps your eyes near the lens. The font size and speed guide explains how to pick the line count.

Small things that help

• Clean the lenses. Smudges catch light and spread it.
• If you own a pair with an anti-reflective coating, wear that pair. It usually helps.
• Do not stand the phone on a glossy desk that bounces light up into your lenses. A cloth or a sheet of paper is enough.

Step 2: Make the text easy to read through your lenses

Find the right distance

Set the phone where it will stand, put your glasses on and sit in your recording position. Move the phone closer or farther by a hand's width at a time until the text looks sharp while your head is level. If you have to raise your chin, the phone is too low or too far. If you have to drop it, the phone is too high.

Go one size up

In the font size guide the rule is to choose the smallest size you can read without leaning. With glasses, test that rule with the glasses on, and if you still move your head, go up one step.

Contrast and highlight

Use plain, sturdy letters and high contrast. Thin faces blur through lenses, especially at the edge of the sharp zone. Turn on sentence highlight, so you can find your place in a glance instead of searching with your whole head.

Step 3: Test with a ten-second clip

1. Put on the glasses you will wear for the video.
2. Set the phone, the lights and the text exactly as they will be for the real take.
3. Record ten seconds, reading the first lines of the script.
4. Play it back and zoom into your eyes. Look for bright spots, a visible rectangle and eyes hidden by shadow.
5. Change one thing, record another ten seconds and compare.

Your script is never part of the recording in Telepromptia, because the text is a separate layer. That does not protect you from reflections, though. A bright screen is real light, and a lens can reflect it. The test clip is the only way to be sure.

Telepromptia's CameraCoach can give hints about light and framing. Treat them as a starting point and still check the clip yourself.

Option: take the glasses off

If you only need glasses for distance, or the text is large enough to read without them, try one take without. Contact lenses are another route, and you can wear them only for recording days.

Heavy frames and eye contact

Thick frames can shadow your eyes and weaken eye contact. A little more front light, or thinner rims, helps. Our guide to looking at the camera while reading covers where the text should sit. With Pro, the face guidance hint can tell you when your head turns away from the camera, which is useful if you notice that you drift while reading.

Common problems

• A white window shape in each lens. Move the window to the side or close the curtain halfway.
• A small bright dot in each lens. The light is too small and too close to the camera. Raise it and turn it to the side.
• A blue-white rectangle in the lens. That is the phone screen. Make the background darker, lower the screen brightness a little and show fewer lines.
• Text looks blurry unless you tilt your head. Change the distance and make the text one step bigger.
• You keep losing your place. Turn on sentence highlight and shorten the lines.

Where Telepromptia fits

Text size, text color, line count, background darkness and sentence highlight are all in the reading settings, and they are saved between scripts, so you tune them once. Everything stays on your device, and exports have no watermark. See the features page for the full list.