METHOD OF, AND ARRANGEMENT FOR, READING TWO-DIMENSIONAL SYMBOLS BY TRANSLATING ENCODED SYMBOL CHARACTERS FROM A LOCAL, TO A GLOBAL, CHARACTER SET

An imaging reader is operatively connected to a host system and captures light returning from a two-dimensional symbol having encoded characters, and processes the captured light into binary data. A controller in the reader or the host system determines from the binary data if the encoded characters are encoded in accordance with a local character set that is indicative of a local language, and translates the local character set to a global character set that is indicative of multiple global languages after determining that the encoded characters are encoded in accordance with the local character set. The encoded characters are processed by the host system controller in accordance with the global character set.