diff --git a/core/views/expo.py b/core/views/expo.py
index 1fd01e5..441d4bc 100644
--- a/core/views/expo.py
+++ b/core/views/expo.py
@@ -126,13 +126,16 @@ def expowebpage(request, expowebpath, path):
         return render(request, 'pagenotfound.html', {'path': path}, status="404")
         
     try:
-        with open(os.path.normpath(expowebpath / path), "r") as o:   
+        with open(os.path.normpath(expowebpath / path), "r", encoding='utf-8') as o:   
             html = o.read()
     except:
+        # exception raised on debian with python 3.9.2 but not on WSL Ubuntu with python 3.9.5
+        # because debian was assuming default text encoding was 'ascii'. Now specified explicitly so should be OK
         try:
             with open(os.path.normpath(expowebpath / path), "rb") as o:   
                 html = str(o.read()).replace("<h1>","<h1>BAD NON-UTF-8 characters here - ")
                 html = html.replace("\\n","\n")
+                html = html.replace("\\r","")
                 html = html.replace("\\t","\t")
                 html = html.replace("\\'","\'")
         except: