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 have been around for about thirty years. Over this time the lucrative industry of the inkjet printer and accessories, such as ink cartridges and ink refills, have flourished.

Companies don't just make profits from the inkjet printers alone. Printer ink cartridges, ink refill and cartridge toner are just a few of the supplies included in this market

The inkjet printer uses extremely small drops of ink to create an image. The drops of ink within the cartridges are around 50 microns, tinier than the diameter of a human hair.

Printer ink cartridges come in various combinations. The most common inkjet printers use a seperate black ink cartridge and a color cartridge to product an image. Some use a separate cartridge for each ink color.

It is important you choose a compatible cartridge for your inkjet printer. If you don't use compatible ink you may ruin your inkjet printer. Two main versions of inkjet printers dominate the inkjet market.

Canon inkjet toner cartridges, for example, utilize thermal bubbles when creating images. In these thermal inkjet printers, tiny resistors create heat, which vaporize the ink to create a bubble.

Once an ink bubble is created it will grow until it pops the ink out of the nozzle in the inkjet cartridge. An inkjet toner cartridge contains hundreds of these nozzles that fire the tiny ink dots.

The second main technology inkjet cartridges implement don't rely on ink bubbles but instead rely on crystals. These minuscule crystals line the ink reservoirs and are the integral pieces of piezoelectric printing.

The crystal receives a message from the inkjet printer causing it to vibrate. These vibrations force tiny amounts of ink out of the cartridge's nozzles and then refill ink into the reservoirs.

Whichever method your inkjet printer uses, both offer a cheaper alternative to laser printing. Laser cartridges use dry ink toner cartridges, heat and electricity to print as opposed to the ink nozzles used in an inkjet cartridge.

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.

For example, the printing supplies store Cartridge World carries a wide range of affordable inkjet printer toner cartridges, both new and refilled. Refilled cartridges are less expensive than new cartridges and are better for the environment while maintaining the same high quality prints as a brand new ink cartridge.

By saving money using inkjet technologies, you can focus your funds on your printing projects. An inkjet toner cartridge can be used to produce everything from shirt decals to greeting cards.

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.