diff --git a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/spring/ConfigFile.java b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/spring/ConfigFile.java
index a0c605f6..5058120e 100644
--- a/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/spring/ConfigFile.java
+++ b/commons/src/main/java/org/archive/spring/ConfigFile.java
@@ -18,9 +18,11 @@
  */
 package org.archive.spring;
 
-import java.io.FileReader;
-import java.io.FileWriter;
+import java.io.FileInputStream;
+import java.io.FileOutputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
 import java.io.Reader;
 import java.io.Writer;
 
@@ -46,7 +48,9 @@ public class ConfigFile extends ConfigPath implements ReadSource, WriteTarget {
             if(!getFile().exists()) {
                 getFile().createNewFile();
             }
-            return new FileReader(getFile());
+            return new InputStreamReader(
+                    new FileInputStream(getFile()),
+                    "UTF-8");
         } catch (IOException e) {
             throw new RuntimeException(e);
         }
@@ -58,7 +62,9 @@ public class ConfigFile extends ConfigPath implements ReadSource, WriteTarget {
     
     public Writer obtainWriter(boolean append) {
         try {
-            return new FileWriter(getFile(), append);
+            return new OutputStreamWriter(
+                    new FileOutputStream(getFile(), append),
+                    "UTF-8");
         } catch (IOException e) {
             throw new RuntimeException(e);
         }
diff --git a/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/restlet/EnhDirectoryResource.java b/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/restlet/EnhDirectoryResource.java
index df4ef750..448c29a3 100644
--- a/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/restlet/EnhDirectoryResource.java
+++ b/engine/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/restlet/EnhDirectoryResource.java
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ import java.util.List;
 import java.util.ListIterator;
 
 import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
+import org.restlet.data.CharacterSet;
 import org.restlet.data.Form;
 import org.restlet.data.Reference;
 import org.restlet.data.Request;
@@ -81,6 +82,9 @@ public class EnhDirectoryResource extends DirectoryResource {
                     File file = ((FileRepresentation)v).getFile();
                     if(getEnhDirectory().allowsEdit(file)) {
                         iter.remove();
+                        // any editable file for our purposes should 
+                        // be XML/UTF-8
+                        v.setCharacterSet(CharacterSet.UTF_8);
                         iter.add(new EditRepresentation((FileRepresentation)v,this));
                     };
                 }
@@ -125,7 +129,7 @@ public class EnhDirectoryResource extends DirectoryResource {
         EditRepresentation er = (EditRepresentation) getVariants().get(0);
         File file = er.getFileRepresentation().getFile(); 
         try {
-            FileUtils.writeStringToFile(file, newContents);
+            FileUtils.writeStringToFile(file, newContents,"UTF-8");
             Flash.addFlash(getResponse(), "file updated");
         } catch (IOException e) {
             // TODO report error somehow