Linotype machines were primarily used for body text and typically handled font sizes ranging from 6 to 18 points (although larger sizes were possible). The Ludlow Typograph, which supported sizes up to 96 points and more, was used for display applications like headlines, advertisements and posters. The Typograph used brass molds or matrices that, unlike Linotype, were assembled by hand in a composing stick. The loaded composing stick was clamped face down in the Typograph machine and molten lead was injected into the matrices to cast the slug. The slug was then assembled for printing with the rest of the contents of the page. Justification was achieved manually using spacers. Italic text could be set using a special composing stick. Special sticks were also available to automatically center text.

Like other linecasting systems, a key advantage of the Ludlow system was that the type was always fresh; after the slug was used for printing, it was melted down for recasting. The brass matrices were made using a steel punch applied with a pressure of 10 to 20 tons (Romano 2022, 231).

The Ludlow Typograph was invented by William I. Ludlow and William A. Reede and was first used commercially to set type in 1911. Ludlow was a civil engineer whose census form for 1900 listed his profession as "inventor" (Romano 2022, 43). He held numerous patents for a variety of inventions, including including door latches, batteries, carpet staplers, postcards and a pencil case. He developed a concept for a typesetting machine (perhaps after seeing typesetting machines at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Romano 2022, 37)) that he shared with William A. Reede, who sold machine tools to customers developing typesetting machines. Ludlow and Reede formed the Ludlow Typograph Company in 1906 to produce a machine based on Ludlow's idea, but the result was not commercializable. Reede then took the lead in developing the Ludlow Typograph in its successful form, which was sold to its first customer in 1913. It remained in common use through much of the 20th century and is still used occasionally by small letterpress printing shops.