HTML::Template does not read files as utf-8, so modifying ikiwiki's template files to contain utf-8 won't currently work. It seems that the best way to fix this would be to make HTML::Template support utf-8. A workaround is to change all the template reading code like this: - my $template=HTML::Template->new(blind_cache => 1, - filename => "$config{templatedir}/page.tmpl"); + open(TMPL, "<:utf8", "$config{templatedir}/page.tmpl"); + my $template=HTML::Template->new(filehandle => *TMPL); + close(TMPL); However, this will make ikiwiki slower when rebuilding a wiki, since it won't cache templates.