diff --git a/src/PhpWord/TemplateProcessor.php b/src/PhpWord/TemplateProcessor.php
index 1de520f6..cbed9730 100644
--- a/src/PhpWord/TemplateProcessor.php
+++ b/src/PhpWord/TemplateProcessor.php
@@ -364,7 +364,6 @@ class TemplateProcessor
         if (!String::isUTF8($replace)) {
             $replace = utf8_encode($replace);
         }
-        $replace = htmlspecialchars($replace);
 
         $regExpDelim = '/';
         $escapedSearch = preg_quote($search, $regExpDelim);