diff --git a/src/compiler/SimpleEditor/Convert.hs b/src/compiler/SimpleEditor/Convert.hs
index e6cb98124..6368772aa 100644
--- a/src/compiler/SimpleEditor/Convert.hs
+++ b/src/compiler/SimpleEditor/Convert.hs
@@ -5,10 +5,15 @@ import Control.Monad(unless,foldM,ap,mplus)
 import Data.List(sortBy)
 import Data.Function(on)
 import qualified Data.Map as Map
-import qualified Data.ByteString.Char8 as BS(pack)
 import Text.JSON(encode,makeObj)
 import Text.PrettyPrint(render)
 
+-- 4 extra imports just to deal with the ByteString mess...
+import qualified Data.ByteString.Char8 as BS(pack)
+import Codec.Binary.UTF8.String(encodeString)
+import GF.Compile.Coding(decodeStringsInModule)
+import System.IO(utf8)
+
 --import GF.Compile.GetGrammar (getSourceModule)
 import GF.Infra.Option(optionsGFO)
 import GF.Infra.Ident(showIdent)
@@ -25,10 +30,10 @@ import SimpleEditor.JSON
 
 parseModule (path,source) =
    (path.=) $
-   case runP pModDef (BS.pack source) of
+   case runP pModDef (BS.pack (encodeString source)) of
      Left (Pn l c,msg) ->
          makeObj ["error".=msg, "location".= show l++":"++show c]
-     Right mod -> case convModule mod of
+     Right mod -> case convModule (decodeStringsInModule utf8 mod) of
                     Ok g -> makeObj ["converted".=g]
                     Bad msg -> makeObj ["parsed".=msg]