diff --git a/editor/svgutils.js b/editor/svgutils.js
index 771288f7..9e7a1f75 100644
--- a/editor/svgutils.js
+++ b/editor/svgutils.js
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ svgedit.utilities.encode64 = function(input) {
 // Converts a string from base64
 svgedit.utilities.decode64 = function(input) {
 	if(window.atob) {
-        return window.atob(input);
+        return svgedit.utilities.decodeUTF8(window.atob(input));
     }
 	var output = '';
 	var chr1, chr2, chr3 = '';
@@ -157,67 +157,16 @@ svgedit.utilities.decode64 = function(input) {
 		enc1 = enc2 = enc3 = enc4 = '';
 
 	} while (i < input.length);
-	return unescape(output);
+    return svgedit.utilities.decodeUTF8(output);
+};
+
+svgedit.utilities.decodeUTF8 = function (argString) {
+    return decodeURIComponent(escape(argString));
 };
 
-// based on http://phpjs.org/functions/utf8_encode
 // codedread:does not seem to work with webkit-based browsers on OSX // Brettz9: please test again as function upgraded
 svgedit.utilities.encodeUTF8 = function (argString) {
-	//return unescape(encodeURIComponent(input)); //may or may not work
-  if (argString === null || argString === undef) {
-    return '';
-  }
-
-  // .replace(/\r\n/g, "\n").replace(/\r/g, "\n");
-  var string = String(argString);
-  var utftext = '',
-    start, end, stringl = 0;
-
-  start = end = 0;
-  stringl = string.length;
-  var n;
-  for (n = 0; n < stringl; n++) {
-    var c1 = string.charCodeAt(n);
-    var enc = null;
-
-    if (c1 < 128) {
-      end++;
-    } else if (c1 > 127 && c1 < 2048) {
-      enc = String.fromCharCode(
-        (c1 >> 6) | 192, (c1 & 63) | 128
-      );
-    } else if ((c1 & 0xF800) != 0xD800) {
-      enc = String.fromCharCode(
-        (c1 >> 12) | 224, ((c1 >> 6) & 63) | 128, (c1 & 63) | 128
-      );
-    } else {
-      // surrogate pairs
-      if ((c1 & 0xFC00) != 0xD800) {
-        throw new RangeError('Unmatched trail surrogate at ' + n);
-      }
-      var c2 = string.charCodeAt(++n);
-      if ((c2 & 0xFC00) != 0xDC00) {
-        throw new RangeError('Unmatched lead surrogate at ' + (n - 1));
-      }
-      c1 = ((c1 & 0x3FF) << 10) + (c2 & 0x3FF) + 0x10000;
-      enc = String.fromCharCode(
-        (c1 >> 18) | 240, ((c1 >> 12) & 63) | 128, ((c1 >> 6) & 63) | 128, (c1 & 63) | 128
-      );
-    }
-    if (enc !== null) {
-      if (end > start) {
-        utftext += string.slice(start, end);
-      }
-      utftext += enc;
-      start = end = n + 1;
-    }
-  }
-
-  if (end > start) {
-    utftext += string.slice(start, stringl);
-  }
-
-  return utftext;
+  return unescape(encodeURIComponent(argString));
 };
 
 // Function: svgedit.utilities.convertToXMLReferences