diff --git a/lib/encodings b/lib/encodings
index 5b1a3a9f03..7a78ca622c 100644
--- a/lib/encodings
+++ b/lib/encodings
@@ -95,6 +95,7 @@ End
 Encoding cp1251 cp1251 "Cyrillic (CP 1251)" CP1251 fixed inputenc
 End
 
+# "ansinew" is harcoded as a synonym of this (see Encodings::fromLaTeXName)
 Encoding cp1252 cp1252 "Western European (CP 1252)" CP1252 fixed inputenc
 End
 
diff --git a/src/Encoding.cpp b/src/Encoding.cpp
index 3fc30ca5db..68dc5351cc 100644
--- a/src/Encoding.cpp
+++ b/src/Encoding.cpp
@@ -696,8 +696,14 @@ Encoding const * Encodings::fromLyXName(string const & name) const
 }
 
 
-Encoding const * Encodings::fromLaTeXName(string const & name) const
+Encoding const * Encodings::fromLaTeXName(string const & n) const
 {
+	string name = n;
+	// FIXME: if we have to test for too many of these synonyms,
+	// we should instead extend the format of lib/encodings
+	if (n == "ansinew")
+		name = "cp1252";
+
 	// We don't use find_if because it makes copies of the pairs in
 	// the map.
 	// This linear search is OK since we don't have many encodings.
diff --git a/status.16x b/status.16x
index d5f9cf2ba9..8c9cde3171 100644
--- a/status.16x
+++ b/status.16x
@@ -80,6 +80,9 @@ What's new
 - Fix a tex2lyx crash when importing a LaTeX file using an unknown encoding
   (bug 6142)
 
+- add encoding "ansinew" as a synonym of "cp1252" for the benefit of 
+  tex2lyx (bug 6142)
+
 - Fix support for polytonic Greek with multiple diacritics (bug 5976).
 
 - Do not unnecessarily enquote brackets in the LaTeX output (bug 5988).