diff --git a/plotjuggler_app/mainwindow.cpp b/plotjuggler_app/mainwindow.cpp
index 9f5f42a22..61ab169c7 100644
--- a/plotjuggler_app/mainwindow.cpp
+++ b/plotjuggler_app/mainwindow.cpp
@@ -1901,18 +1901,25 @@ bool MainWindow::loadLayoutFromFile(QString filename)
     return false;
   }
 
+  // Read file content with explicit UTF-8 encoding to handle Unicode characters
+  QTextStream stream(&file);
+  stream.setCodec("UTF-8");
+  QString fileContent = stream.readAll();
+  file.close();
+
   QString errorStr;
   int errorLine, errorColumn;
 
   QDomDocument domDocument;
 
-  if (!domDocument.setContent(&file, true, &errorStr, &errorLine, &errorColumn))
+  if (!domDocument.setContent(fileContent, true, &errorStr, &errorLine, &errorColumn))
   {
     QMessageBox::information(window(), tr("XML Layout"),
                              tr("Parse error at line %1:\n%2").arg(errorLine).arg(errorStr));
     return false;
   }
 
+
   //-------------------------------------------------
   // refresh plugins
   QDomElement root = domDocument.namedItem("root").toElement();
@@ -3054,6 +3061,7 @@ void MainWindow::on_buttonSaveLayout_clicked()
   if (file.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly))
   {
     QTextStream stream(&file);
+    stream.setCodec("UTF-8");
     stream << doc.toString() << "\n";
   }
 }