diff --git a/src/Intervention/Image/Gd/Font.php b/src/Intervention/Image/Gd/Font.php
index 47a7b15b..142b7944 100644
--- a/src/Intervention/Image/Gd/Font.php
+++ b/src/Intervention/Image/Gd/Font.php
@@ -82,6 +82,13 @@ class Font extends \Intervention\Image\AbstractFont
 
         if ($this->hasApplicableFontFile()) {
 
+            // imagettfbbox() converts numeric entities to their respective
+            // character. Preserve any originally double encoded entities to be
+            // represented as is.
+            // eg:   will render   rather than its character.
+            $this->text = preg_replace('/&(#(?:x[a-fA-F0-9]+|[0-9]+);)/', '&\1', $this->text);
+            $this->text = mb_encode_numericentity($this->text, array(0x0080, 0xffff, 0, 0xffff), 'UTF-8');
+
             // get bounding box with angle 0
             $box = imagettfbbox($this->getPointSize(), 0, $this->file, $this->text);