Patent ID: 7398929

Claim:
A portable bar code reading device for reading a bar code symbol disposed on a substrate, said device comprising: a solid state image sensor; optics focusing an image onto said solid state image sensor; a trigger for driving said device into an active reading state; wherein said bar code reading device is configured to read either of a 1D bar code symbol or a 2D bar code symbol, and wherein said portable bar code reading device is responsive to a manually input selection by a user specifying whether 1D bar code symbols or 2D bar code symbols are to be read utilizing the device; wherein said bar code reading device, when 1D bar code symbols are specified, obtains an electronic representation of a symbol in a first format subsequently to said trigger being actuated and attempts symbol decoding using a 1D decoding algorithm; and wherein said bar code reading device, when 2D bar code symbols are specified, obtains an electronic representation of a symbol in a second format subsequently to said trigger being actuated and attempts symbol decoding using a 2D decoding algorithm, wherein said second format is different from said first format.