The two overall types of window blinds are ready-made blinds and made to measure. Made-to-measure blinds are made to fit a given or measured window size. Ready-made blinds are manufactured in set sizes that can be cut down to fit any window.

These blinds can be classified broadly into six different categories: roller blinds (which do not have slats but consist of a single piece of material), Roman blinds, pleated blinds, Venetian blinds, Shoji Japanese blinds and vertical blinds.

Many window blinds are made with slats of fabric, metal, plastic, or wood that are adjusted by being rotated from an open position (in which the slats do not overlap) to a closed position (in which they do). Metal window blinds are often used outside of a home or business to protect against theft, temperature, onlookers, glare, bad weather, or fire (in fire-prone areas); often, these blinds are machine-operated, rather than hand-operated.

Horizontal blinds use a thin woven corded “ladder” system to suspend the slats and enable them to be closed or opened via a rotating drum to which each upper end of the woven ladder is wrapped and attached. A lift cord allows the blind to be pulled up and stack tightly to top of the window when desired.

One of the earliest patents for a window shade was filed in 1888, by George L. Castner.

Vertical blinds use a generally wider slat and one can pull a cord to stack the slats together, to one side, or to separate them in the centre and stack them on each end. The slats can be rotated via a rotating shaft in the upper head rail housing, which runs through independent geared carriers that convert the twisting of a tilt rail to a rotation of each individual slat in synchrony. The original vertical blinds were invented in Kansas City, Missouri by Edward Bopp and Fredrick Bopp, who held the original patent. The company name at the time was Sun Vertical. In the 1960s, the patent and company were sold.[citation needed]

Shoji blinds are based on Japanese ‘Shoji’ screens and slide on a conventional panel blind track so the panels stack one in front of the other. They can stack to either or both sides of the window, inside or outside the recess, and are frequently used as room dividers or wardrobe doors.