diff --git a/index.html b/index.html
index 1430524..6b19974 100644
--- a/index.html
+++ b/index.html
@@ -80,6 +80,38 @@
 			<input id="prefdisablesounds" type="checkbox" class="prefinput">
 			<label class="preflabel" for="prefautoplayvideos">Autoplay log videos:</label>
 			<input id="prefautoplayvideos" type="checkbox" class="prefinput">
+			<label class="preflabel" for="prefencoding">Encoding:</label>
+			<select id="prefencoding" class="prefinput">
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="windows-1252">Western (Windows-1252)</option>
+					<option value="macintosh">Western (Macintosh)</option>
+					<option value="iso-8859-15">Western (ISO-8859-15)</option>
+					<option value="iso-8859-1">Western (ISO-8859-1)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="utf-8">Unicode (UTF-8)</option>
+					<option value="utf-16">Unicode (UTF-16)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="shift_jis">Japanese (Shift_JIS)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="gb2312">Chinese Simplified (GB2312)</option>
+					<option value="gbk">Chinese Simplified (GBK)</option>
+					<option value="big5">Chinese Traditional (Big5)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="iso-8859-5">Cyrillic (ISO-8859-5)</option>
+					<option value="windows-1251">Cyrillic (Windows-1251)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="iso-8859-14">Celtic (ISO-8859-14)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+				<optgroup>
+					<option value="windows-1253">Greek (Widows-1253)</option>
+					<option value="iso-8859-7">Greek (ISO-8859-7)</option>
+				</optgroup>
+			</select>
 		</div>
 
 		<div id="authenticate" class="zoompanel" data-state=0>
diff --git a/js/client.js b/js/client.js
index 3354fa4..da93ebd 100644
--- a/js/client.js
+++ b/js/client.js
@@ -197,8 +197,7 @@ class PalaceProtocol {
 
 	connect(ip,port) {
 
-		this.textDecoder = new TextDecoder('windows-1252'); // default server encoding
-		this.textEncoder = new TextEncoder('windows-1252', { NONSTANDARD_allowLegacyEncoding: true }); // palace default! :\
+		this.setEncoder(prefs.general.encoding);
 
 		if (!port) port = '9998';
 		this.ip = ip.trim();
@@ -1160,6 +1159,10 @@ class PalaceProtocol {
 		this.send(packet);
 	}
 
+	setEncoder(encoding) {
+		this.textDecoder = new TextDecoder(encoding);
+		this.textEncoder = new TextEncoder(encoding, { NONSTANDARD_allowLegacyEncoding: true }); // palace default! :\
+	}
 }
 
 
diff --git a/js/interface.js b/js/interface.js
index 64738ed..8c4088c 100644
--- a/js/interface.js
+++ b/js/interface.js
@@ -385,6 +385,15 @@ if (window.require) {
 	document.getElementById('prefhomepalace').onchange = function() {
 		setGeneralPref('home',this.value);
 	};
+	document.getElementById('prefencoding').onchange = function() {
+		try {
+			palace.setEncoder(this.value);
+			setGeneralPref('encoding',this.value);
+		} catch (error) {
+			logerror(error);
+			this.value = getGeneralPref('encoding');
+		}
+	};
 	document.getElementById('prefpropbagsize').oninput = function() { // change prop bag tile size :D
 		setGeneralPref('propBagTileSize',this.value);
 		refreshPropBagView(true);
diff --git a/js/preferences.js b/js/preferences.js
index 4517e37..b060249 100644
--- a/js/preferences.js
+++ b/js/preferences.js
@@ -20,8 +20,8 @@ function setGeneralPref(id,value) {
 	prefs.general[id] = value;
 }
 
-function getGeneralPref(id) {
-	return prefs.general[id];
+function getGeneralPref(id,def) {
+	return prefs.general.hasOwnProperty(id) ? prefs.general[id] : def;
 }
 
 window.onunload = function(e) {
@@ -66,4 +66,5 @@ window.onunload = function(e) {
 	}
 	document.getElementById('prefusername').value = getGeneralPref('userName');
 	document.getElementById('prefhomepalace').value = getGeneralPref('home');
+	document.getElementById('prefencoding').value = getGeneralPref('encoding','windows-1252');
 })();