Hello Tomcat
Yes, you are right. Now i know your needs...and i have a solution for you.
You must to purchase a device driver called NED Imager.
It costs about $ 40. It works capturing the output from the printer port and automatically generates a Tif files.
To use it with Windows 98/ME you must redirect your print job making some change to the PRINTFILE configuration file, before to start printing, inserting the name of the "virtual printer" NED Imager.
One it produces the TIFF file, it runs automatically the Imaging preview application that is installed in all Windows O.S.
There is a little difference for Win2K. The Win98 drivers can not be used on Win2k. It has a separated driver for it.
This is only a little solution, but you can try to test other options, like to produce a PDF file. There are a lot of printer device drivers to capture the printer spool.
There is another solution, building it directly from Powercobol without using third party products. The solution is to build a Device Contest generating an EMF file and put it in an image controls as it is a normal image. It isn't nice to see, but it run.
I'm using the Imaging solution described above and my customers are satisfied...
Let me know if this helps you.
Gianni