Patent ID: 8196838

Claim:
A method for operating a hand held bar code reader for decoding either a 1D or 2D bar code symbol: (a) providing a timercount memory space for storing timercount data; (b) providing an image memory space for storing bit image representation data; (c) moving said hand held bar code reader across said 1D or 2D bar code symbol while imaging a succession of 1D slices thereof; (d) storing a bit image representation of each slice into said image memory space; (e) examining image data of said image memory space after storage of each bit image representation to determine if the image memory space includes representation of a 2D finder pattern; (f) if a 2D finder pattern is found at step (e), storing a predetermined number of additional slice bit image representations into said image memory space, the predetermined number being a number sufficient to assure that a symbol representation of sufficient size to allow decoding is stored in said image memory space.