diff --git a/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py b/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
index c50a149adb..880726c16e 100644
--- a/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
+++ b/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ def make_xlsx(data, sheet_name, wb=None):
 
 def handle_html(data):
 	# return if no html tags found
+	data = frappe.as_unicode(data)
+
 	if '<' not in data:
 		return data
 	if '>' not in data: