diff --git a/src/Paragraph.cpp b/src/Paragraph.cpp
index 0df5e36432..9f3fb5ec98 100644
--- a/src/Paragraph.cpp
+++ b/src/Paragraph.cpp
@@ -1156,10 +1156,12 @@ void Paragraph::Private::latexSpecialChar(otexstream & os,
 	char_type const c = text_[i];
 
 	if (style.pass_thru || runparams.pass_thru) {
-		if (c != '\0')
-			// FIXME UNICODE: This can fail if c cannot
-			// be encoded in the current encoding.
+		if (c != '\0') {
+			Encoding const * const enc = runparams.encoding;
+			if (enc && enc->latexChar(c, true).empty())
+				throw EncodingException(c);
 			os.put(c);
+		}
 		return;
 	}