diff --git a/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/spec/html/edit_spec.js b/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/spec/html/edit_spec.js
index aeef2f111d..cfa3f1225a 100644
--- a/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/spec/html/edit_spec.js
+++ b/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/spec/html/edit_spec.js
@@ -40,6 +40,14 @@ describe('HTMLEditingDescriptor', function() {
       expect(visualEditorStub.getContent()).toEqual('text /c4x/foo/bar/asset/image.jpg');
     });
     it('Enables spellcheck', () => expect($('.html-editor iframe')[0].contentDocument.body.spellcheck).toBe(true));
+    it('Retains ascii characters', function() {
+      const editorData = '<a href="/static/Programación_Gas.pptx">fóó</a>';
+      const expectedData = '<p><a href="/static/Programación_Gas.pptx">fóó</a></p>'
+
+      this.descriptor.getVisualEditor().setContent(editorData)
+      const savedContent = this.descriptor.getVisualEditor().getContent()
+      expect(savedContent).toEqual(expectedData);
+    });
   });
   describe('Raw HTML Editor', function() {
     beforeEach(function() {
diff --git a/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/src/html/edit.js b/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/src/html/edit.js
index 34de8437b7..cc2c798ccc 100644
--- a/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/src/html/edit.js
+++ b/common/lib/xmodule/xmodule/js/src/html/edit.js
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@
           theme: "modern",
           skin: 'studio-tmce4',
           schema: "html5",
+          entity_encoding: "raw",
 
           /*
           Necessary to preserve relative URLs to our images.