Before reading any further, take a quick look to your right and left. There is a good chance while scanning the area around your computer you saw an inkjet printer. And if you are like me, your brain wonders just how the printer and the inkjet cartridges within work.

Inkjet printers came onto the scene in the late 1980's. Their inception has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry.

The inkjet printer alone does not make a profit. It is the companion products, like inkjet catridge toner, refill ink and other print supplies that bring in the big bucks.

Creating images with small dots of ink tinier than a grain of salt, the inkjet printer is a modern marvel. Inkjet cartridges, containing hundreds of tiny nozzles spraying this ink, are equally ingenious.

There are many varieties of inkjet cartridges and cartridge toner. While some inkjet printers use just one cartridge that combines both black and color ink, other printers require several cartridge color inks.

Different versions of inkjet printers utilize these cartridges in different ways. There are two main inkjet technologies used to form droplets of ink.

The first group relies on thermal technology. For instance, a Hewlett Packard inkjet toner cartridge will create a bubble of ink by heating tiny resistors within the cartridge.

The bubble will then expand, pushing ink out of a nozzle onto the paper. As this ink bubble pops, a vacuum is created, pulling more ink from the print head into the cartridge. These inkjet cartridges contain as many as 600 tiny nozzles simultaneously firing droplets of ink.

Epson, though, patented a different kind of technology that uses piezo crystals. In piezoelectric printer ink cartridges, these crystals line the reservoirs of ink.

Piezoelectric printing uses electricity to vibrate devices within the inkjet cartridge. The vibrations excite the ink and push it up through the nozzles, out of the cartridge and onto the paper.

Whether it's crystal or thermal, both versions of inkjet printers remain more affordable than laser printers. Instead of using nozzles like an inkjet toner cartridge, the costly laser printer relies on heat and dry ink toner cartridge to print images.

If you refill your inkjet cartridges with a refill kit or buy refill ink cartridges from a print supplies store, inkjet printing can also save you money. The ink refill process can be messy, however, and there are many stores that can help you avoid the hassle.

Retailers such as Cartridge World offer affordable printer supplies such as inkjet toner cartridge refills. These cartridges provide the same quality of new inkjet cartridges for a fraction of the price.

You can spend the money you saved using an inket printer to create a wide variety of media allowed by these printers. Whether you want to produce labels, stickers, business cards or even t-shirts, there are inkjet toner cartridges for many activities.

An inkjet printer and cartridges will open up a world of opportunity for those to express their imagination. And since you have learned a bit more about how inkjet printers and cartridges work, you can appreciate the process that much more.