diff --git a/lib/tablelib.php b/lib/tablelib.php
index 06e97dc26c54a..d1fb84d9877b0 100644
--- a/lib/tablelib.php
+++ b/lib/tablelib.php
@@ -1685,6 +1685,7 @@ function start_document($filename) {
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
   xml:lang="en" lang="en">
 <head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
 <style type="text/css">/*<![CDATA[*/
 
 .flexible th {
