diff --git a/interface/wx/fs_mem.h b/interface/wx/fs_mem.h
index 546ced5b2b..37f13021ab 100644
--- a/interface/wx/fs_mem.h
+++ b/interface/wx/fs_mem.h
@@ -83,6 +83,12 @@ public:
         Stored data (bitmap, text or raw data) will be copied into private memory
         stream and available under name @c "memory:" + @e filename.
 
+        When using the overload taking @c wxString data, if the string contains
+        only Latin-1 characters (which includes strings created using
+        wxString::From8BitData()), its data is used as is. Otherwise, the UTF-8
+        representation of the string is stored as the data associated with the
+        given @a filename.
+
         @note you must use a @a type value (aka image format) that wxWidgets
               can save (e.g. JPG, PNG, see wxImage documentation)!
 
diff --git a/src/common/fs_mem.cpp b/src/common/fs_mem.cpp
index 6153a76a96..b177a824e8 100644
--- a/src/common/fs_mem.cpp
+++ b/src/common/fs_mem.cpp
@@ -180,7 +180,12 @@ void wxMemoryFSHandlerBase::AddFileWithMimeType(const wxString& filename,
                                                 const wxString& textdata,
                                                 const wxString& mimetype)
 {
-    const wxCharBuffer buf(textdata.To8BitData());
+    // We try to use the provided data "as is" if possible, but if not, we fall
+    // back to UTF-8 because it's better to do this than just lose the data
+    // completely.
+    wxCharBuffer buf(textdata.To8BitData());
+    if ( !buf.length() )
+        buf = textdata.utf8_str();
 
     AddFileWithMimeType(filename, buf.data(), buf.length(), mimetype);
 }