diff --git a/lib/PGcore.pm b/lib/PGcore.pm
index fc4794fea9..b2f12f80bd 100755
--- a/lib/PGcore.pm
+++ b/lib/PGcore.pm
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ use Tie::IxHash;
 use WeBWorK::Debug;
 use MIME::Base64();
 use PGUtil();
+use Encode qw(encode_utf8 decode_utf8);
 
 ##################################
 # PGcore object
@@ -563,13 +564,15 @@ sub PG_restricted_eval {
 sub decode_base64 ($) {
 	my $self = shift;
 	my $str = shift;
-	MIME::Base64::decode_base64($str);
+	$str = MIME::Base64::decode_base64($str);
+	decode_utf8($str);
 }
 
 sub encode_base64 ($;$) {
 	my $self = shift;
 	my $str  = shift;
 	my $option = shift;
+	$str = encode_utf8($str);
 	MIME::Base64::encode_base64($str);
 }
 
diff --git a/lib/Value/String.pm b/lib/Value/String.pm
index 438a10f8b0..bf9022f705 100644
--- a/lib/Value/String.pm
+++ b/lib/Value/String.pm
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ sub compare {
 #
 #  Mark a string to be display verbatim
 #
-sub verb {shift; return "\\verb".chr(0x85).(shift).chr(0x85)}
+sub verb {shift; return "\\verb".chr(0x1F).(shift).chr(0x1F)}
 
 #
 #  Put normal strings into \text{} and others into \verb
diff --git a/lib/WeBWorK/PG/IO.pm b/lib/WeBWorK/PG/IO.pm
index 0990606be6..feecdfa0f8 100644
--- a/lib/WeBWorK/PG/IO.pm
+++ b/lib/WeBWorK/PG/IO.pm
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ sub read_whole_file {
 	    unless path_is_course_subdir($filePath);
 	
 	local (*INPUT);
-	open(INPUT, "<$filePath") || die "$0: read_whole_file subroutine: <BR>Can't read file $filePath";
+	open(INPUT, "<:utf8", $filePath) || die "$0: read_whole_file subroutine: <BR>Can't read file $filePath";
 	local($/)=undef;
 	my $string = <INPUT>;  # can't append spaces because this causes trouble with <<'EOF'   \nEOF construction
 	close(INPUT);