diff --git a/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/FingerprintKeyer.java b/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/FingerprintKeyer.java
index 005207fdc..5d8885996 100644
--- a/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/FingerprintKeyer.java
+++ b/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/FingerprintKeyer.java
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ public class FingerprintKeyer extends Keyer {
         s = s.trim(); // first off, remove whitespace around the string
         s = s.toLowerCase(); // then lowercase it
         s = punctctrl.matcher(s).replaceAll(""); // then remove all punctuation and control chars
+        s = asciify(s); // find ASCII equivalent to characters
         String[] frags = StringUtils.split(s); // split by whitespace
         TreeSet<String> set = new TreeSet<String>();
         for (String ss : frags) {
@@ -65,7 +66,7 @@ public class FingerprintKeyer extends Keyer {
                 b.append(' ');
             }
         }
-        return asciify(b.toString()); // find ASCII equivalent to characters 
+        return b.toString();
     }
 
     protected String asciify(String s) {
diff --git a/main/tests/server/src/com/google/refine/tests/clustering/binning/KeyerTests.java b/main/tests/server/src/com/google/refine/tests/clustering/binning/KeyerTests.java
index 237ca1ea8..12604439b 100644
--- a/main/tests/server/src/com/google/refine/tests/clustering/binning/KeyerTests.java
+++ b/main/tests/server/src/com/google/refine/tests/clustering/binning/KeyerTests.java
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ public class KeyerTests extends RefineTest {
     
     private static final String[][] testStrings = {
         {"the multi multi word test","multi test the word"},
+        {" école ÉCole ecoLe ", "ecole"},
         {"a b c d","a b c d"},
         {" d c b a ","a b c d"},
         {"\tABC \t DEF ","abc def"}, // test leading and trailing whitespace