diff --git a/etemplate/inc/class.bo_merge.inc.php b/etemplate/inc/class.bo_merge.inc.php
index e5c48baa2e..6452bac406 100644
--- a/etemplate/inc/class.bo_merge.inc.php
+++ b/etemplate/inc/class.bo_merge.inc.php
@@ -1012,7 +1012,8 @@ abstract class bo_merge
 					continue;
 				}
 				// decode html entities back to utf-8
-				if (is_string($value) && (strpos($value,'&') !== false))
+				
+				if (is_string($value) && (strpos($value,'&') !== false) && $this->parse_html_styles)
 				{
 					$value = html_entity_decode($value,ENT_QUOTES,$charset);
 
@@ -1022,8 +1023,13 @@ abstract class bo_merge
 						$value = preg_replace('/&[^; ]+;/','',$value);
 					}
 				}
-				// remove all html tags, evtl. included
-				if (is_string($value) && (strpos($value,'<') !== false))
+
+				if(!$this->parse_html_styles)
+				{
+					// Encode special chars so they don't break the file
+					$value = htmlspecialchars($value,ENT_NOQUOTES);
+				}
+				else if (is_string($value) && (strpos($value,'<') !== false))
 				{
 					// Clean HTML, if it's being kept
 					if($replace_tags && extension_loaded('tidy')) {