1. A method of encoding a data string into a bar code symbol, the data string comprising a plurality of data characters, the data characters selected from a double byte character set of human readable characters, a number of the data characters also being contained in a single byte character set which is a subset of the double byte character set, the method comprising the steps of: determining a plurality of character codes corresponding to the plurality of data characters, the character codes selected from a first set of character codes, the first set of character codes being mapped to the first set of data characters; parsing the data string to separate the double byte character codes of characters from the single byte character set from the data string; converting the double byte character codes in the parsed data string into double byte symbol values; converting the double byte character codes parsed from the data string into single byte symbol values; and outputting the double byte symbol values and the single byte symbol values to form the bar code symbol.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of outputting the symbol values includes the steps of: calculating a set of counts corresponding to the symbol values; and operating a printer based on the set of counts to print the symbol.