diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 29a804cb59..4e3e1ee359 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
+*.docx
+*.xml
 /.settings
 /.buildpath
 /.project
-/docs
\ No newline at end of file
+/docs
diff --git a/src/Examples/Utf8Text.php b/src/Examples/Utf8Text.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..dafed14ed6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/Examples/Utf8Text.php
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+<?php
+
+require_once '../PHPWord.php';
+
+$utf8Str = '福建省泉州市惠南工业区北一路 • Plain Text << ___ More text?';
+
+$PHPWord = new PHPWord();
+$section = $PHPWord->createSection();
+$section->addText($utf8Str);
+
+$objWriter = PHPWord_IOFactory::createWriter($PHPWord, 'Word2007');
+$objWriter->save('Utf8Text.docx');
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/PHPWord/Section.php b/src/PHPWord/Section.php
index 10d1ce6d0d..e443f49de5 100644
--- a/src/PHPWord/Section.php
+++ b/src/PHPWord/Section.php
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ public function getSettings() {
 	 * @return PHPWord_Section_Text
 	 */
 	public function addText($text, $styleFont = null, $styleParagraph = null) {
-		$givenText = utf8_encode($text);
+		$givenText = (mb_detect_encoding($text) === 'UTF-8') ? $text : utf8_encode($text);
 		$text = new PHPWord_Section_Text($givenText, $styleFont, $styleParagraph);
 		$this->_elementCollection[] = $text;
 		return $text;