Actually the API calls have not been so horrendous. I have been able
to replace all internal Excel VBA commands for this project without too
much trouble. The last bit is this get text part. I don't need to get
the text in a text file I want to put the text in a variable at runtime
in my excel vba code directly. I already use the clipboard with
success. I have tested SendMessage, GetDlgItemText, GetWindowText,
SetWindowText and have been able to set the text and retrieve it with
these functions but I am not able to get the text from the screen.
When I use wm_SetText or SetWindowText it changes the Title of the
child window. I am then able to get that text. From what I have read
elsewhere in the Groups this indicates that the window is accepting
these commands. The text window may have hidden windows which I
understand slightly after searching the Groups/Web but I am not sure
how to proceed to learn more about this. I used EnumWindows to
retrieve the following results of my open session. Note the Title
"Hello, world!" which was placed there by one of my SetText tests. I
also included info that I retreived from a GUIi Spy Tool. I feel like
I am close but frustrated because I am unclear as to how to proceed.

LEV. CLASSNAME HANDLE PARENT TITLE
0 PCSWS:Main:00400000 590504 0 AS400
1 msctls_statusbar32 656032 590504
1 PCSWS:Oia:00400000 656034 590504
1 PCSWS:Hsb:00400000 656036 590504
1 PCSWS:Pres:00400000 525212 590504 Hello, world!
1 UCMBrkr 524982 590504
2 UCMenu 525008 524982
3 ScrollBar 2360176 525008
4 Hide 787228 2360176
5 MenuToolBar 524984 787228
6 ToolbarWindow32 590526 524984

This is the window information that contains text I wish to get!

{displayed: 1,width: 960,x: 36,y: 119,abs_x: 32,class:
object,MSW_class: "PCSWS:Pres:00400000",abs_y: 115,maximizable:
0,focused: 0,height: 577,active: 0,MSW_id: 2,handle:
525212,minimizable: 0,nchildren: 0,label: "Hello, world!",enabled:
1,TOOLKIT_class: "PCSWS:Pres:00400000"}

I have also come across information regarding HLLAPI

Declare Function hllapi& Lib "PCSHLL32.DLL" (Func&, ByVal DataString$,
Length&, RetC&)

This API is provided by IBM and requires an install I believe.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.