diff --git a/src/plugins/lib/libhtml.py b/src/plugins/lib/libhtml.py
index ebdcda5fe..cd20776d0 100644
--- a/src/plugins/lib/libhtml.py
+++ b/src/plugins/lib/libhtml.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 #
 # Gramps - a GTK+/GNOME based genealogy program
 #
@@ -28,6 +30,11 @@
 
 from __future__ import print_function
 
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Python modules
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------
+import re
+
 """
 HTML operations.
 
@@ -97,6 +104,46 @@ _START_CLOSE = set([
     'param'
     ])
 
+_html_dbl_quotes = re.compile(r'([^"]*) " ([^"]*) " (.*)', re.VERBOSE)
+_html_sng_quotes = re.compile(r"([^']*) ' ([^']*) ' (.*)", re.VERBOSE)
+_html_replacement = {
+    "&"  : "&",
+    ">"  : ">",
+    "<"  : "&#60;",
+    "°"  : "",
+    }
+
+#------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# html_ecape function
+#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+# This command then defines the 'html_escape' option for escaping
+# special characters for presentation in HTML based on the above list.
+def html_escape(text):
+    """Convert the text and replace some characters with a &# variant."""
+
+    # First single characters, no quotes
+    text = ''.join([_html_replacement.get(c, c) for c in text])
+
+    # Deal with double quotes.
+    while 1:
+        m = _html_dbl_quotes.match(text)
+        if not m:
+            break
+        text = m.group(1) + '&#8220;' + m.group(2) + '&#8221;' + m.group(3)
+    # Replace remaining double quotes.
+    text = text.replace('"', '&#34;')
+
+    # Deal with single quotes.
+    text = text.replace("'s ", '&#8217;s ')
+    while 1:
+        m = _html_sng_quotes.match(text)
+        if not m:
+            break
+        text = m.group(1) + '&#8216;' + m.group(2) + '&#8217;' + m.group(3)
+    # Replace remaining single quotes.
+    text = text.replace("'", '&#39;')
+
+    return text
 #------------------------------------------------------------------------
 #
 # Html class.
diff --git a/src/plugins/webreport/NarrativeWeb.py b/src/plugins/webreport/NarrativeWeb.py
index 540c9a92b..69f265c8e 100644
--- a/src/plugins/webreport/NarrativeWeb.py
+++ b/src/plugins/webreport/NarrativeWeb.py
@@ -103,6 +103,9 @@ from libhtmlconst import _CHARACTER_SETS, _CC, _COPY_OPTIONS
 # src/plugins/lib/libhtml.py
 from libhtml import Html
 
+#import the html_escape function
+from libhtml import html_escape as html_escape
+
 # import styled notes from
 # src/plugins/lib/libhtmlbackend.py
 from libhtmlbackend import HtmlBackend, process_spaces
@@ -197,46 +200,9 @@ wrapper = TextWrapper()
 wrapper.break_log_words = True
 wrapper.width = 20
 
-_html_dbl_quotes = re.compile(r'([^"]*) " ([^"]*) " (.*)', re.VERBOSE)
-_html_sng_quotes = re.compile(r"([^']*) ' ([^']*) ' (.*)", re.VERBOSE)
-_html_replacement = {
-    "&"  : "&#38;",
-    ">"  : "&#62;",
-    "<"  : "&#60;",
-    }
-
 PLUGMAN = GuiPluginManager.get_instance()
 CSS = PLUGMAN.process_plugin_data('WEBSTUFF')
 
-# This command then defines the 'html_escape' option for escaping
-# special characters for presentation in HTML based on the above list.
-def html_escape(text):
-    """Convert the text and replace some characters with a &# variant."""
-
-    # First single characters, no quotes
-    text = ''.join([_html_replacement.get(c, c) for c in text])
-
-    # Deal with double quotes.
-    while 1:
-        m = _html_dbl_quotes.match(text)
-        if not m:
-            break
-        text = m.group(1) + '&#8220;' + m.group(2) + '&#8221;' + m.group(3)
-    # Replace remaining double quotes.
-    text = text.replace('"', '&#34;')
-
-    # Deal with single quotes.
-    text = text.replace("'s ", '&#8217;s ')
-    while 1:
-        m = _html_sng_quotes.match(text)
-        if not m:
-            break
-        text = m.group(1) + '&#8216;' + m.group(2) + '&#8217;' + m.group(3)
-    # Replace remaining single quotes.
-    text = text.replace("'", '&#39;')
-
-    return text
-
 def name_to_md5(text):
     """This creates an MD5 hex string to be used as filename."""
     return md5(text).hexdigest()