diff --git a/ diy-layout-creator --username bancika@gmail.com/diylc-core/src/org/diylc/presenter/ProjectFileManager.java b/ diy-layout-creator --username bancika@gmail.com/diylc-core/src/org/diylc/presenter/ProjectFileManager.java
index 594c89e7..277895cb 100644
--- a/ diy-layout-creator --username bancika@gmail.com/diylc-core/src/org/diylc/presenter/ProjectFileManager.java	
+++ b/ diy-layout-creator --username bancika@gmail.com/diylc-core/src/org/diylc/presenter/ProjectFileManager.java	
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.FileOutputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
 import java.io.Reader;
@@ -56,6 +57,7 @@ import org.w3c.dom.Document;
 import org.w3c.dom.Element;
 import org.w3c.dom.Node;
 import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
+import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
 import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
 
 import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
@@ -89,7 +91,7 @@ public class ProjectFileManager {
 
 	public ProjectFileManager(MessageDispatcher<EventType> messageDispatcher) {
 		super();
-		this.xStream = new XStream(new DomDriver());
+		this.xStream = new XStream(new DomDriver("UTF-8"));
 		xStream.autodetectAnnotations(true);
 		xStream.registerConverter(new PointConverter());
 		this.xStreamOld = new XStream(new DomDriver());
@@ -128,7 +130,7 @@ public class ProjectFileManager {
 		File file = new File(fileName);
 		DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
 		DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
-		Document doc = db.parse(file);
+		Document doc = db.parse(new InputSource(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file))));
 		doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();
 		if (doc.getDocumentElement().getNodeName().equalsIgnoreCase(Project.class.getName())) {
 			project = parseV3File(fileName);