diff --git a/ui-lib.pl b/ui-lib.pl
index f0e87d261..0c1f8e4e9 100755
--- a/ui-lib.pl
+++ b/ui-lib.pl
@@ -1305,7 +1305,7 @@ return "<textarea class='ui_textarea' ".
        "rows='$rows' cols='$cols'".($wrap ? " wrap='$wrap'" : "").
        ($dis ? " disabled='true'" : "").
        ($tags ? " $tags" : "").">".
-       &html_escape($value).
+       &html_escape($value, 1).
        "</textarea>";
 }
 
diff --git a/web-lib-funcs.pl b/web-lib-funcs.pl
index 7740ec38e..354f93c21 100755
--- a/web-lib-funcs.pl
+++ b/web-lib-funcs.pl
@@ -242,7 +242,7 @@ if ($sorted_by && $sorted_by_sectioning_preserved) {
 	}
 }
 
-=head2 html_escape(string)
+=head2 html_escape(string, [editor-mode])
 
 Converts &, < and > codes in text to HTML entities, and returns the new string.
 This should be used when including data read from other sources in HTML pages.
@@ -250,13 +250,16 @@ This should be used when including data read from other sources in HTML pages.
 =cut
 sub html_escape
 {
-my ($tmp) = @_;
+my ($tmp, $editor_mode) = @_;
 if (!defined $tmp) {
 	return ''; # empty string
 	};
 # Before escaping ampersand use negative lookahead to see if occurrence
 # is not an HTML entity already to prevent double escaping
-$tmp =~ s/&(?!(([a-zA-Z]+)|(#|#x)\d+);)/&amp;/g;
+$tmp =~ s/&(?!(([a-zA-Z]+)|(#|#x)\d+);)/&amp;/g if (!$editor_mode);
+# In editor mode always escape all ampersands
+# to make sure they are displayed per se
+$tmp =~ s/&/&amp;/g if ($editor_mode);
 # Just always escape the following
 $tmp =~ s/</&lt;/g;
 $tmp =~ s/>/&gt;/g;