A method for preparing a multi-lingual personal identification card includes receiving a multi-lingual text comprising Latin-based characters in a Latin-based language and non-Latin-based characters in a non-Latin-based language. The multi-lingual text includes the name of the holder of the personal identification card in the Latin-based language and the non-Latin-based language. The method converts the non-Latin-based characters in the multi-lingual text to index values to produce a pseudo text. The conversion is based on a predefined mapping that converts the Unicode values of the non-Latin-based characters to index values having fewer digits than the corresponding Unicode values of the non-Latin-based characters. The method receives vector data for a personal image which includes a facial image, a finger print, or a combination of both of the holder of the personal identification card, and encodes the pseudo text and the vector data in the matrix-code symbol.