A handheld data entry terminal includes a housing and a scanning head mounted to the housing for pivotal movement between at least first and second reading positions. The scanning head, when actuated, optically scans an encoded symbol and detects light reflected from the encoded symbol while in either of the first and second reading positions. As desired, a terminal user can establish either one of first and second trigger switches mounted to the housing as a scanning head actuating switch, leaving the other of the trigger switches to be established as a shift key for determining the type of characters entered by alphanumeric data entry keys of a keypad also mounted to the housing in conjunction with an LCD display.