A hand-supportable digital-imaging based system for reading bar code symbols involving: automatically detecting the presence of an object within a field of view FOV of the system, and in response thereto, automatically generating an image cropping zone (ICZ) framing pattern and projecting the ICZ framing pattern within the FOV and onto the detected object; visually aligning the code symbol on the detected object, within the ICZ framing pattern; manually actuating a trigger switch when the code symbol on the object is located within the ICZ framing pattern, and while the ICZ framing pattern and a field of illumination are being simultaneously projected onto the object during object illumination operations, forming and capturing a digital image of the code symbol on the detected object; automatically cropping the image pixels contained within the spatial boundaries of the ICZ framing pattern, from the pixels of the digital image; and decode processing the cropped image so as to read one or more 1D and/or 2D code symbols graphically represented therein.