Patent ID: 7275694

Claim:
A method for reading a bar code symbol disposed on a substrate utilizing a portable hand held bar code reading device having a solid state image sensor, optics focusing an image onto said solid state image sensor, and a trigger, said method comprising the steps of: (a) depressing said trigger to drive said portable hand held bar code reading device from an idle state to an active reading state; (b) generating a first electronic representation of said substrate carrying said bar code symbol, said first electronic representation representing a first region of said substrate; (c) attempting to decode said bar code symbol by processing said first electronic representation; (d) outputting decoded data representing said bar code symbol and entering an idle state if said attempt to decode step (c) is successful; (e) generating a second electronic representation of said substrate carrying said bar code symbol, said generating step including the step of storing a plurality of pixel values into a set of memory locations, said second electronic representation representing a second region of said substrate, wherein each pixel value of said second electronic representation represents light reflectivity at a certain physical location of said substrate within said second region, and (f) attempting to decode said bar code symbol by processing said second electronic representation of said substrate carrying said bar code symbol, (g) wherein said generating steps (b) and (e) are executed sequentially subsequent to a single depressing of said trigger and wherein said generating step (e) and said attempting to decode step (f) are not completed if said attempting to decode step (c) is successful.