Parallel port to PLC?

I'm trying to find a way to receive a string in my compactlogix that's coming from a device typically used in a lab connected to a PC. There is 2 options according to the manufacturer. They can output it through the USB port, but this device isn't windows based and a driver cannot be added to recognize a USB to serial adapter. Also it does not act as a HID device so that eliminates being able to use a RTA USB gateway. Basically whatever gateway I use has to be able to recognize this device as a com port via the USB. I'd rather not add a PC to the system and find a simpler more cost effective way.

The other option is it has a old style 25 pin centronics style port that is meant to output directly to a printer. They said they can output the string I need that way. I found some black box brand printer to serial converters that would work, but they are powered by the serial port through pins 4 7&9 according to them and from the best I can tell the serial ports on the ASCII cards only have connections for 2&3.

At this point I'm out of ideas. Anyone have any suggestions?

I have connected a parallel port to a PLC-2 a long time ago. Used a 16 point TTL (5vdc) input card and a 16 point TTL output card. Just used the Strobe and 8 bits of input and then a single Ack output. I don't have a copy of the code but I remember it wasn't to complicated.
I remember the string had a starting character and an end character. Used those to build the input string and then sent to a Basic module that did the reporting.

I think that the 1769-IG16 and 1769-OG16 would get you the 5V DC interface you will need for the parallel port.

But running each character through the I/O scan and PLC scan... it's going to be very slow, slower than a serial connection.

This is one of those rare occasions where I would almost recommend an Arduino to do the Parallel/Serial conversion !

An off-the-shelf Parallel/Serial converter would also do the trick, and you could fashion a cable to feed it 12V DC power on the necessary pins, while letting pins 2/3/5 do the serial work.

Why do you need to receive a string?

What is the device you're trying to connect to?

Centronics was a 36 or 50 pin port. Do you mean that? or a DB25 D-shell?

If DB25

Is that port a Parallel port or a 25pin serial port?

It is a Cirris electrical tester that had a parallel DB25 port that used Centronics printer protocol. I did find out today that they offer a different model that will work for our application with a true serial port for a slight price increase. So I'm going this route to avoid some headache. Thanks to all that replied.