Patent ID: 7210632

Claim:
An arrangement for controlling scanning bean spot size and shape in a reader for electro-optically reading indicia, the arrangement comprising: a) a laser for emitting a laser beam along an optical axis; b) an optical modifier for optically modifying the beam exiting the laser to have an ovoidal cross-section in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis, wherein the modifier is a focusing modifier lens to the collimating the beam along a scan direction along which the indicia is read, and for diverging the beam along a scan direction along a transverse direction along perpendicular to the scan direction; c) a movable controller for optically conditioning the beam exiting the modifier to form a beam spot on the indicia, the controller being axially movable along the optical axis between one position in which the beam spot has a generally circular cross-section, and another position in which the beam spot has a generally ovoidal cross-section; and d) a scanner for sweeping the beam spot across the indicia with the controller in one of said positions.