diff --git a/gramps/plugins/webreport/webcal.py b/gramps/plugins/webreport/webcal.py
index d9659e1cc..1956bad4e 100644
--- a/gramps/plugins/webreport/webcal.py
+++ b/gramps/plugins/webreport/webcal.py
@@ -14,10 +14,10 @@
 # the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 # (at your option) any later version.
 #
-# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, calendar
 # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
-# GNU General Public License for more details.
+# GNU General Public License for more details.calendar
 #
 # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 # along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Web Calendar generator.
 # python modules
 #------------------------------------------------------------------------
 from functools import partial
-import os, codecs, shutil, re
+import os, codecs, shutil, re, sys
 import datetime, calendar
 from gramps.gen.const import GRAMPS_LOCALE as glocale
 _ = glocale.get_translation().sgettext
@@ -368,7 +368,22 @@ class WebCalReport(Report):
         if not os.path.isdir(destdir):
             os.makedirs(destdir)
 
-        of = codecs.EncodedFile(open(fname, "w"), 'utf-8', self.encoding, 'xmlcharrefreplace')
+        if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
+            # In python 2.x, the data written by of.write() is genarally of
+            # type 'str' (i.e. 8-bit strings), except for cases where (at
+            # least) one of the objects being converted by a '%' operator is
+            # unicode (e.g. the "Generated by" line or the _META3 line), in
+            # which case the data being written is of type 'unicode' (See
+            # http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#string-
+            # formatting). The data written to the file is encoded according
+            # to self.encoding
+            of = codecs.EncodedFile(open(fname, 'w'), 'utf-8',
+                                    self.encoding, 'xmlcharrefreplace')
+        else:
+            # In python 3, the data that is written by of.write() is always
+            # of type 'str' (i.e. unicode text).
+            of = open(fname, 'w', encoding=self.encoding,
+                      errors='xmlcharrefreplace')
         return of
 
     def close_file(self, of):