diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/input.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/input.py
index 935a187d5d..b444bf1cf4 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/input.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/input.py
@@ -57,7 +57,6 @@ def convert(self, stream, options, file_ext, log,
             txt = preserve_spaces(txt)
 
         txt = _ent_pat.sub(xml_entity_to_unicode, txt)
-        txt = txt.encode('utf-8')
 
         if options.markdown:
             log.debug('Running text though markdown conversion...')
@@ -80,7 +79,7 @@ def convert(self, stream, options, file_ext, log,
             base = os.path.dirname(stream.name)
         htmlfile = open(os.path.join(base, 'temp_calibre_txt_input_to_html.html'),
                 'wb')
-        htmlfile.write(html) #html.encode('utf-8')
+        htmlfile.write(html.encode('utf-8'))
         htmlfile.close()
         cwd = os.getcwdu()
         odi = options.debug_pipeline
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/processor.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/processor.py
index 6bd635b6df..58a24f65dc 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/processor.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/txt/processor.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 def convert_basic(txt, title='', epub_split_size_kb=0):
     # Strip whitespace from the beginning and end of the line. Also replace
     # all line breaks with \n.
-    txt = u'\n'.join([line.strip() for line in txt.splitlines()])
+    txt = '\n'.join([line.strip() for line in txt.splitlines()])
 
     # Condense redundant spaces
     txt = re.sub('[ ]{2,}', ' ', txt)
@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ def convert_basic(txt, title='', epub_split_size_kb=0):
     # Remove excessive line breaks.
     txt = re.sub('\n{3,}', '\n\n', txt)
     #remove ASCII invalid chars : 0 to 8 and 11-14 to 24
-    #illegal_char = re.compile('\x00|\x01|\x02|\x03|\x04|\x05|\x06|\x07|\x08| \
-     #   \x0B|\x0E|\x0F|\x10|\x11|\x12|\x13|\x14|\x15|\x16|\x17|\x18')
-    txt = re.sub('\u000[0-8]|\u001[14-9]|\u002[0-4]', '', txt)
+    illegal_char = re.compile('\x00|\x01|\x02|\x03|\x04|\x05|\x06|\x07|\x08| \
+        \x0B|\x0E|\x0F|\x10|\x11|\x12|\x13|\x14|\x15|\x16|\x17|\x18')
+    txt = illegal_char.sub('', txt)
     
     #Takes care if there is no point to split
     if epub_split_size_kb > 0:
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ def convert_basic(txt, title='', epub_split_size_kb=0):
         chunk_size = long(length_byte / (int(length_byte / (epub_split_size_kb * 1024) ) + 2 ))
         #if there are chunks with a superior size then go and break
         if (len(filter(lambda x: len(x) > chunk_size, txt.split('\n\n')))) :
-            txt = u'\n\n'.join([split_string_separator(line, chunk_size) 
+            txt = '\n\n'.join([split_string_separator(line, chunk_size) 
                 for line in txt.split('\n\n')])
 
     lines = []
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ def opf_writer(path, opf_name, manifest, spine, mi):
 
 def split_string_separator(txt, size) :
     if len(txt) > size:
-        txt = u''.join([re.sub(u'\.(?P<ends>[^.]*)$', u'.\n\n\g<ends>',
+        txt = ''.join([re.sub(u'\.(?P<ends>[^.]*)$', '.\n\n\g<ends>',
             txt[i:i+size], 1) for i in
             xrange(0, len(txt), size)])
     return txt