Looms today work in a similar way to those used for hundreds of years. The warp threads are attached to the front and back beams, and are held under tension. Each warp thread passes through a heddle which can be a knotted string, a texsolv heddle or a metal heddle, that raises or lowers the thread, allowing the weft to be woven through the warp threads.

Looms can have multiple shafts allowing for more complex pattern designs. Floor looms can be classed into 3 types, Jack, Counterbalance and Countermarche. On a Jack loom, the sheds are raised up when a pedal is depressed. A Counterbalance loom has counterweights. When some shafts are lowered, the others are raised. This results in a smoother, and quieter weaving action. The countermarche loom uses a pulley action where the warp threads are pulled both up and down, resulting in less stress upon each individual thread.

The dobby loom was invented to help avoid treadling errors for complex patterns. It uses a peg system to control the raising of the pattern shafts. Computerized versions are available.