Couple of things, consider using Eagle PCB free software for desing capture and PCB. Then send board info digitally to http://www.olimex.com/ there about as cheap as you can get for proto pcb's. I paid $27 including shipping for 4 double sided solder mask silk screened boards!
As far as buffering the printer port. Are you looking to drive long cables? As designed the PC printer port should easily drive 8'. Where the problem comes in is receiving those signals. Use a slow logic device such as a cmos 40106 schmidt trigger with a rc network on the input. A low impedance series resistor to a node of a pull up resistor and a cap to gnd.
Phil