diff --git a/app/helpers/ifpdf_helper.rb b/app/helpers/ifpdf_helper.rb
index 755692f65..5e7fb2898 100644
--- a/app/helpers/ifpdf_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/ifpdf_helper.rb
@@ -53,10 +53,13 @@ module IfpdfHelper
     def Cell(w,h=0,txt='',border=0,ln=0,align='',fill=0,link='')
       @ic ||= Iconv.new(l(:general_pdf_encoding), 'UTF-8')
       txt = begin
-        @ic.iconv(txt)
+        # 0x5c char handling
+        txtar = txt.split('\\')
+        txtar << '' if txt[-1] == ?\\
+        txtar.collect {|x| @ic.iconv(x)}.join('\\').gsub(/\\/, "\\\\\\\\")
       rescue
         txt
-      end
+      end || ''
       super w,h,txt,border,ln,align,fill,link
     end