diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 96f6b8cb..f1a521e0 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -52,10 +52,10 @@ This is based on [data-markdown](https://gist.github.com/1343518) from [Paul Iri
 
 #### External Markdown
 
-You can write your content as a separate file and have reveal.js load it at runtime. Note the separator arguments which determine how slides are delimited in the external file.
+You can write your content as a separate file and have reveal.js load it at runtime. Note the separator arguments which determine how slides are delimited in the external file. The ```data-charset``` attribute is optional and specifies which charset to use when loading the external file.
 
 ```html
-<section data-markdown="example.md" data-separator="^\n\n\n" data-vertical="^\n\n"></section>
+<section data-markdown="example.md" data-separator="^\n\n\n" data-vertical="^\n\n" data-charset="iso-8859-15"></section>
 ```
 
 ### Configuration
diff --git a/plugin/markdown/example.html b/plugin/markdown/example.html
index 90ff1346..ceed53fb 100644
--- a/plugin/markdown/example.html
+++ b/plugin/markdown/example.html
@@ -16,8 +16,8 @@
 
 			<div class="slides">
 
-                <!-- Use external markdown resource, separate slides by three newlines; vertical slides by two newlines and specify a custom charset -->
-                <section data-markdown="example.md" data-separator="^\n\n\n" data-vertical="^\n\n" data-charset="iso-8859-15"></section>
+                <!-- Use external markdown resource, separate slides by three newlines; vertical slides by two newlines -->
+                <section data-markdown="example.md" data-separator="^\n\n\n" data-vertical="^\n\n"></section>
 
                 <!-- Slides are separated by three dashes (quick 'n dirty regular expression) -->
                 <section data-markdown data-separator="---">