Strange Request?? Parallel Port Input

We are working on a system where we would like to capture info into a computer from a printer signal.

We have a printer on our WAN that prints order tickets from the "mother ship" We would like to capture that info into a computer's printer port, then auto-parse it into some kind of system from which we would auto-fill fields in either a WonderWare app or a SQL Database.

We are currently able to see the bits changing via some VB code, but are not yet able to make any kind of sense of the data.

Does this make any sense at all??

Any thoughts??

What kind of printer? Pure, Dumb, ASCII? or an InkJet/LaserJet, more modern printer?

If its the former, you should be able to read in a pure ASCII stream, probably with some control codes. If it's the latter, you are probably screwed, as non-dumb printers use page description languages or raw bitmap dumps (pretty much binary)

I did my bachelor degree final project on the parallel port and couldnt have done it without the help of lakeview research...
http://www.lvr.com/

From their website you may find an activex driver to help you.