diff --git a/OCR_samples.ipynb b/OCR_samples.ipynb
index 2c69ba24aa999fb6f471ce629a6f7eed23455b87..7e7907e32e53b5a4cdfb34170a427f075a9e89b0 100644
--- a/OCR_samples.ipynb
+++ b/OCR_samples.ipynb
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
   },
   {
    "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 1,
+   "execution_count": 2,
    "id": "195c1f7d-9056-40f7-86cb-835d9a5052a9",
    "metadata": {},
    "outputs": [],
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@
   },
   {
    "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 5,
+   "execution_count": 4,
    "id": "1ac51927-4cba-457a-a8e9-9fd9d7b52f65",
    "metadata": {},
    "outputs": [
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@
     "\n",
     "txtpaths = sorted(Path('data').glob('*1815*.txt'))\n",
     "strpaths = list(filter(lambda x: 'new' not in x, [str(p) for p in txtpaths]))\n",
-    "txts = [open(txt).read() for txt in strpaths]\n",
+    "txts = [open(txt, 'r', encoding='utf-8').read() for txt in strpaths]\n",
     "txt_df = pd.DataFrame([txts], columns=strpaths)\n",
     "pd.set_option(\"display.max_colwidth\", None)\n",
     "display(HTML(txt_df.to_html().replace(\"\\\\n\",\"<br>\")))"
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@
   },
   {
    "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 6,
+   "execution_count": 5,
    "id": "b9542753-a848-421e-81f3-65b07f3818b4",
    "metadata": {},
    "outputs": [
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@
    "source": [
     "txtpaths = sorted(Path('data').glob('*1870*.txt'))\n",
     "strpaths = list(filter(lambda x: 'new' not in x, [str(p) for p in txtpaths]))\n",
-    "txts = [open(txt).read() for txt in strpaths]\n",
+    "txts = [open(txt, 'r', encoding='utf-8').read() for txt in strpaths]\n",
     "txt_df = pd.DataFrame([txts], columns=strpaths)\n",
     "pd.set_option(\"display.max_colwidth\", None)\n",
     "display(HTML(txt_df.to_html().replace(\"\\\\n\",\"<br>\")))"
@@ -277,7 +277,7 @@
   },
   {
    "cell_type": "code",
-   "execution_count": 8,
+   "execution_count": 6,
    "id": "22f88237-22da-4fe1-8546-86ee4070f743",
    "metadata": {},
    "outputs": [
@@ -311,7 +311,7 @@
    ],
    "source": [
     "txtpaths = sorted(Path('data').glob('*new.txt'))\n",
-    "txts = [open(txt).read() for txt in txtpaths]\n",
+    "txts = [open(txt, 'r', encoding='utf-8').read() for txt in txtpaths]\n",
     "txt_df = pd.DataFrame([txts], columns=txtpaths)\n",
     "pd.set_option(\"display.max_colwidth\", None)\n",
     "display(HTML(txt_df.to_html().replace(\"\\\\n\",\"<br>\")))"