Got a meeting coming up at the office? Or a presentation at school? Or even a role in a play? Remembering key bullet points or a script can be a task. A teleprompter – that handy display on which text scrolls, reminding you of what to say (think “cue cards”!) – can be such a blessing in such a situation. Well, so can your iPad. Because you can use your iPad as a teleprompter! And no, it is not at all complex. Just follow these simple steps, and your iPad will be in teleprompter mode:
1. Turn on your iPad (duh) and open the Pages application
Start off by simply turning on your iPad and heading to the Pages app, which is actually where this feature lies. Those who might be wondering, Pages now comes preinstalled on the iPad and is Apple’s word processor. Just swipe down from the home screen and enter its name in the search bar if you cannot find it. If you cannot find it, relax, it is free on the App Store. Just grab it from here.
2. Create your document
After you have opened Pages, choose to start a new document (just hit the “+” on the extreme upper right corner), pick a template from the many presented (go with “basic” as you don’t need fuss) and then enter the script or points you have to remember. If you have your text in another document, simply cut and paste it in a new document in Pages. The chances are this will happen cleanly enough.
3. Press “More”
Once you have selected your document on the application, you will find yourself on a screen with five different options on top. Ignore these and just tap the three dots (More) present on the top right-hand side of the screen, which open the “More” menu.
4. Choose “Presenter Mode”
After tapping on More, you will get a number of different options and features to work with on your document. Do not get distracted by these (they are handy, but will be covered in another “How To” on another day) and scroll to the option that says, “Presenter Mode”. Tap on the icon, and you will be told how the mode only displays body text and not text boxes, tables, images amongst other information – suits us! Now all you have to do is press OK icon present on that notification box. And Voila! You can now use your iPad as a teleprompter – the text will appear in large size. Just tap it, and it will start scrolling.
5. Change and customize
Of course, you can also tweak things a bit if you wish. Once you activate Presenter Mode, you will have two ‘A’s on the top right side of the screen. Once you tap on it, you will find a number of options to let you control your teleprompter experience:
The font size: There are two available sizes in the options where one is relatively smaller than the other, you can choose between either of the two as per your requirement. Colour of the background: Here you have four options to choose from; white, beige, dark grey and black. Choose the one background color that you like the best out of the lot and go ahead with it. Font: You can also select which font you would be the most comfortable with while reading out of your screen. There are a number of options including popular fonts like Times New Roman, Georgia, Helvetica, and San Francisco. Text options: This option lets you can decide whether you want your text in all caps or not and how much line spacing and margins you want on the screen. Auto scroll: This allows you to just look at the screen without having to worry about scrolling. Once activated this will automatically scroll down the text for you. Speed: So the text scrolls when you touch it, but how do you control just how fast or slow it scrolls? This is where this option will come in handy. Speed is a slider with a turtle icon on the left and a hare icon on the right – clever, right? (And sooooo Apple!). The slider determines the speed at which the text will scroll on your screen. For the slowest speed you have to slide all the way down to left towards the turtle, and for the fastest speed you have to slide to the right, the hare’s side.
So there you are. The next time you have a piece to speak or present, just keep your iPad in your line of sight. Some might doubt whether it is a computer (notwithstanding those ads), but there’s no denying that it can be a very nifty teleprompter.
