A bar code recognizing/demodulating circuit compares with each other a demodulated data string including a start bar but excluding an end bar and a demodulated data string including the end bar but excluding the start bar among a variety of demodulated data strings obtained by a scan/convergence optical system scanning a bar code. A total sum of the numbers of digits of the two demodulated data strings is detected, and whether the total sum is larger than the number of digits of the bar code to be read is checked. If larger than the number of digits of the bar code, whether data of overlapped portions of the two demodulated data strings coincide with each other is checked. If coincident, demodulated data corresponding to the whole bar code are synthesized based on the two demodulated data strings.