Quick start

MiniPrompter puts your script just under your webcam and lights your face while you read it. It floats on top of whatever you are already using, so you can run it over Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, OBS or QuickTime without changing how you record.

Get your words in

There are three ways, and none of them is better than the others.

• Paste. Copy your script from anywhere, then press ⌘V. Formatting is stripped down to headings and body text, which is all a prompter needs.
• Open a file. ⌘O, or drag a file onto the script window or the Dock icon. Plain text, Markdown, RTF and Word documents all work.
• Menu bar. Click the MiniPrompter icon in the menu bar and choose Paste & Start. That one pastes and starts scrolling.

A sample script is already loaded the first time you open MiniPrompter. Read it, or replace it. It explains the controls as it scrolls past.

Read

1. Click the script window once, so it is the window your keys go to. It glows faintly at the edge when it is.
2. Press Space. You get a three-second countdown, then the words start moving.
3. Press Space again to stop. Or hold it down to slow gently to a stop, and let go to carry on.
4. Press ↑ and ↓ while you read to change the speed. There are ten steps.

The red line is where you read from. Drag its handle on the right edge to move it, or set it in Settings › Layout.

Put a script away

⌘W closes it and leaves you a blank viewport, ready for the next one. If you have changes that were never saved to a file, it asks first. It is also in the File menu and in the menu-bar icon.

Quitting is different: quitting never asks, because MiniPrompter saves what is on screen continuously and puts it straight back next time.

Fix a typo without leaving

Press ⌘E. The script becomes editable in place, at a normal size. Press ⌘E again, or click Done, and you are back to prompting where you left off.

Move the window

Drag anywhere on the script window's background to move it. Drag an edge or a corner to resize it. It remembers where you put it.

Light your face with the fill light

The band of light around your screen edges is the fill light, on by default. It is not a replacement for a real ring light — a screen only gets so bright — but in a dim room it makes a visible difference.

• ← and → change the brightness while you read.
• ⌘← and ⌘→ change the warmth.
• Everything else is in Settings › Fill Light.

When your keys stop working

They have not stopped working. Keys only reach MiniPrompter when MiniPrompter is the app in front. The moment you click into Zoom, your keys belong to Zoom.

That is normal for this kind of app, and there are two ways round it:

• Use the buttons. Hover over the script window and a small bar appears along the bottom with play, speed, text size, back-to-the-top and edit.
• Turn on the shortcuts that work everywhere: Settings › Shortcuts. They ask for no permissions.