[6] Pantèlègraph is a portmanteau from pantograph, an instrument that copies handwritten words and sketches, plus "telegraph", an electrical system that sends messages through a normal wire over long distances and that can be mechanically synced.

The receiving apparatus at the other end has an electrical stylus and draws blue ink on white paper, reproducing the image line-by-line.

[7][10] Caselli made a prototype of his system by 1856 and presented it to Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in a demonstration that used telegraph lines.

[12] The world's first practical operating facsimile machine ("fax") system put into use was by Caselli and utilized a scanning technology Froment devised.

[13] Napoleon saw 1860 a demonstration given of Caselli's pantelegraph and then put in an order for the operation of it within the French telegraph network that started about a year later in the country.

[13] Caselli had access to not only the French telegraph lines for his pantelegraph facsimile machine technology, but finances were provided by Napoleon.

A test was done successfully then between Paris and Amiens with the signature of composer Gioacchino Rossini as the image sent, and it was received 87 miles (140 km) away recognizable.

[19] Napoleon was impressed on how well Caselli's apparatus worked and granted him permission to use the French telegraph lines for trials to develop out the machine further.

Because of the communication service the pantelegraph did Caselli was hailed as a hero for coming up with the technology and Napoleon bestowed the Legion of Honor upon him.

The French State Legislature Council in 1867 authorized an electrical line between Paris and the town of Marseille to be permanently installed to run a pantelegraph.

[13] Russian Tsar Alexander II put an experimental service in place between his palaces in Saint Petersburg and Moscow between 1861 and 1865.

[2] The majority of Caselli's patents, letters, and proofs of teleautographic transmissions are nowadays kept at the municipal library of Siena in Tuscany, Italy, and some can be found in the archives of the Museo Galileo in Florence.

German physicist Arthur Korn in the early 1900s developed a practical mechanical television system, known as the Bildtelegraph, that transmitted photographs and fingerprints of criminals.

[26][27][28] Herbert E. Ives, television engineer of AT&T, designed a system in 1927 that transmitted live scanned images of a person's face using electronic "electric eyes" mounted in a cabinet.